Image links in markdown

I wanted to use an image from Flickr and give attribution to the creator, linking the image to its original location.

Since markdown supports inline html my first approach was to paste the following code in the markdown file:

<a href="http://link_url">
    <img src="http://image_url" />
</a>

However this approach is not elegant enough, it would be better if this could be done using pure markdown syntax.

The syntax for a link in markdown is:

[text](http://link_url)

And the syntax for an image in markdown is:

![alt text](http://image_url)

To create an image link in markdown the following could be used

[![alt text](http://image_url)](http://link_url]

There is an alternative method to create links and images in markdown, known as reference-style links, using IDs that refer to URLs later in the file. This is a neater syntax and allows us to keep all the URLs in one place, usually at the end of the file.

The reference-style syntax for a link is:

[text][id_1]

[id_1]: http://link_url

The reference-style for an image is

![alt text][id_2]

[id_2]: http://image_url

Finally, the resulting image link is:

[![alt text][id_2]][id_1]

[id_1]: http://link_url
[id_2]: http://image_url