Anchor values of relative URLs in Markdown files are encoded

[robtimus]

Affected version

3.21.0

Bug description

I am using Markdown files to generate my site. When these files include anchors to relative URLs these get encoded. That currently prevents me from including links to methods in my own API docs unless I make them absolute.

I have found #731 and #748, as well as apache/maven-doxia#391, but the suggestions in these don't solve my issue.

I have tried the following:

• Escape both ( and ) using . These get encoded to .28 and .29 respectively.
• Use %28 and %29 instead of ( and ). These get encoded to .2528 and .2529 respectively.
• Use Markdown links as well as elements. Both show the same issue.
• Use ## instead of a single #, as suggested in the Doxia issue. That gets converted into #a.23, and my ( and ) still get encoded.
• Use %23 instead of #. That %23 and the %28 and %29 now remain, but the URL then leads to a 404, because the "anchor" now becomes part of the URL, and the file no longer ends with .html but with the anchor.

For reasons I am unable to switch to xhtml or Velocity. However, because I'm not using any templating at all, I expect links in my Markdown files to remain as-is.

Apart from using absolute links, what can I do to make my anchors remain intact?