markdown - What is the difference between README and README.md in GitHub projects?

Question

I've noticed some GitHub projects have not only a README file, but also a README.md file.

What is the difference between these files? I know README serves also as introductory text in the project repository page but I have no idea what README.md does.

Answer 1

.md is markdown. README.md is used to generate the html summary you see at the bottom of projects. Github has their own flavor of Markdown.

Order of Preference: If you have two files named README and README.md, the file named README.md is preferred, and it will be used to generate github's html summary.

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FWIW, Stack Overflow uses local Markdown modifications as well (also see Stack Overflow's C# Markdown Processor)