Jekyll & Liquid Cheatsheet

A list of the most common functionalities in Jekyll (Liquid). You can use Jekyll with GitHub Pages, just make sure you are using the proper version.

Running

Running a local server for testing purposes:

jekyll serve
jekyll serve --watch --baseurl ''

Creating a final outcome (or for testing on a server):

jekyll build
jekyll build -w

The -w or --watch flag is for enabling auto-regeneration, the --baseurl '' one is useful for server testing.

Troubleshooting

On Windows you can get this error when building/serving:

Liquid Exception: incompatible character encodings: UTF-8 and IBM437 in index.html

You need to set the code-page first:

chcp 65001

Liquid

Output

Simple example of Output:

Hello {{name}}
Hello {{user.name}}
Hello {{ 'leszek' }}

Filtering output:

Word hello has {{ 'hello' | size }} letters!
Todat is {{ 'now' | date: "%Y %h" }}

Useful where filter example of getting single item from _data:

{% assign currentItem = site.data.foo | where:"slug","bar" %}
{{ newArray[0].name }}

Most common filters:

• where -- select elements from array with given property value: {{ site.posts | where:"category","foo" }}
• group_by -- group elements from array by given property: {{ site.posts | group_by:"category" }}
• markdownify -- convert markdown to HTML
• jsonify -- convert data to JSON: {{ site.data.dinosaurs | jsonify }}
• date -- reformat a date (syntax reference)
• capitalize -- capitalize words in the input sentence
• downcase -- convert an input string to lowercase
• upcase -- convert an input string to uppercase
• first -- get the first element of the passed in array
• last -- get the last element of the passed in array
• join -- join elements of the array with certain character between them
• sort -- sort elements of the array: {{ site.posts | sort: 'author' }}
• size -- return the size of an array or string
• strip_newlines -- strip all newlines (\n) from string
• replace -- replace each occurrence: {{ 'foofoo' | replace:'foo','bar' }}
• replace_first -- replace the first occurrence: {{ 'barbar' | replace_first:'bar','foo' }}
• remove -- remove each occurrence: {{ 'foobarfoobar' | remove:'foo' }}
• remove_first -- remove the first occurrence: {{ 'barbar' | remove_first:'bar' }}
• truncate -- truncate a string down to x characters
• truncatewords -- truncate a string down to x words
• prepend -- prepend a string: {{ 'bar' | prepend:'foo' }}
• append -- append a string: {{ 'foo' | append:'bar' }}
• minus, plus, times, divided_by, modulo -- working with numbers: {{ 4 | plus:2 }}
• split -- split a string on a matching pattern: {{ "a~b" | split:~ }}

Tags

Tags are used for the logic in your template.

Comments

For swallowing content.

We made 1 million dollars {% comment %} in losses {% endcomment %} this year

Raw

Disables tag processing.

{% raw %}
    In Handlebars, {{ this }} will be HTML-escaped, but {{{ that }}} will not.
{% endraw %}

If / Else

Simple expression with if/unless, elsif [sic!] and else.

{% if user %}
    Hello {{ user.name }}
{% elsif user.name == "The Dude" %}
    Are you employed, sir?
{% else %}
    Who are you?
{% endif %}

{% unless user.name == "leszek" and user.race == "human" %}
    Hello non-human non-leszek
{% endunless %}

# array: [1,2,3]
{% if array contains 2 %}
    array includes 2
{% endif %}

Case

For more conditions.

{% case condition %}
    {% when 1 %}
        hit 1
    {% when 2 or 3 %}
        hit 2 or 3
    {% else %}
        don't hit
{% endcase %}

For loop

Simple loop over a collection:

{% for item in array %}
    {{ item }}
{% endfor %}

Simple loop with iteration:

{% for i in (1..10) %}
    {{ i }}
{% endfor %}

There are helper variables for special occasions:

• forloop.length -- length of the entire for loop
• forloop.index -- index of the current iteration
• forloop.index0 -- index of the current iteration (zero based)
• forloop.rindex -- how many items are still left?
• forloop.rindex0 -- how many items are still left? (zero based)
• forloop.first -- is this the first iteration?
• forloop.last -- is this the last iteration?

Limit and offset starting collection:

# array: [1,2,3,4,5,6]
{% for item in array limit:2 offset:2 %}
    {{ item }}
{% endfor %}

You can also reverse the loop:

{% for item in array reversed %}
...

Storing variables

Storing data in variables:

{% assign name = 'leszek' %}

Combining multiple strings into one variable:

{% capture full-name %}{{ name }} {{ surname }}{% endcapture %}

Permalinks

Permalinks are constructed with a template:

/:categories/:year/:month/:day/:title.html

These variables are available:

• year -- year from the filename
• short_year -- same as above but without the century
• month -- month from the filename
• i_month -- same as above but without leading zeros
• day -- day from the filename
• i_day -- same as above but without leading zeros
• title -- title from the filename
• categories-- specified categories for the post