Assign an array literal to a variable in Liquid Template

Question

The only way i know to create an array from my liquid template is:

{% assign my_array = "one|two|three" | split: "|" %}

Is there any other way to do it?

Bearish

Answer 1

Frontmatter

This is a good workaround, add to the top of your file:

---
my_array:
  - one
  - two
  - three
---

then use it as:

{{ page.my_array }}

Analogous for site wide site.data.my_array on the _config or under _data/some_file.yml.

Jekyll 3 update for layouts

If the frontmatter is that of a layout, you need to use:

{{ layout.style }}

instead. See: https://mcmap.net/q/408735/-can-you-use-jekyll-page-variables-in-a-layout

Blight

Another option is to create a file named "_data/my_array.yml" and put inside the contents: " - one - two - three". Then, it is accessible via site.data.my_array as you said. – Tamie

why create it in template directly is prohibited? – Mnemonics

@Adi don't know exactly. In general Liquid is crippled by design to allow running untrusted templates. – Blight

Answer 2

Is there any other way to do it?

Nope, your split filter is the way to do it.

Confidence

correct. You must use split. Shopify docs on liquid array: docs.shopify.com/themes/liquid-documentation/basics/… – Kapellmeister

Answer 3

Here's another way to do it by first using capture as a friendly way to assign newline-separated values to a variable and then converting that variable to an array with assign and a few filters:

{% capture my_array %}
one
two
three
{% endcapture %}

{% assign my_array = my_array | strip | newline_to_br | strip_newlines | split: "<br />" %}

The filters do the following:

1. strip removes the leading whitespace before one and the trailing whitespace after three.
2. newline_to_br replaces newlines with <br /> tags.
3. strip_newlines removes possible extraneous newlines.
4. split converts the string into an array, using <br /> as a separator.

Vidovik

Answer 4

If you put the array in the page frontmatter like:

---
my_array:
  - one
  - two
  - three
---

I have tested that you could simply write it like so:

---
my_array: [one,two,three]
my_prime: [5,7,11,13,17,19]
---

Both of {{ page.my_array }} and {{ page.my_prime }} will output correctly.

Isle