# Creating Parsing Extensions

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-parsing-extensions/154915
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [June 15, 2020, 6:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-parsing-extensions/154915 "2020-06-15T18:25:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![Johani](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/johani/32/176920_2.png) [@Johani](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Johani)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-parsing-extensions/154915/2 "2020-06-15T18:38:18Z")

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Hey and welcome to Meta @R4356th 👋

> [@R4356th](#):
>
> Do I need to make any changes to the existing Discourse files

No, making changes to Discourse files on your server (in this context) means that you’ll either be unable to update your site or that your changes will be wiped with the next update.

The way to approach this is to either create a [plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-1/30515) or a [theme / theme component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/developer-s-guide-to-discourse-themes/93648).

Those are the methods your can use to extend Discourse to match your needs.

For your particular feature, you’ll need a plugin. I recommend taking a look at the source code of the bbcode plugin for inspiration.  
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse-bbcode](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-bbcode)

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