Struggling to use .CurrentSection in shortcode

support
1

Hi all,

I’m trying to modify the children shortcode from Learn/docdock to filter on sections under a particular level. For example, I have the following:

content
└── animals
├── _index.html
├── cat
│   ├── _index.html
│   ├── persian
│   │   └── _index.html
│   └── tabby
│       └── _index.htm
└── dog
    ├── _index.html
    ├── husky
    │   └── _index.html
    └── poodle
        └── _index.html

And I want to add a short code to content/animals/_index.html to filter and only process “dog” pages for instance. If I reference .Section for each page in a range I get animals which I expect.

When I try to use .CurrentSection, which I interpret as the current section for the page being processed, it returns a page object for that page. For the same page, .Kind returns “section”, so I’m stumped as to how to get the current section for “dog”, and then when I process those sub pages get “husky” and “poodle”.

I’m pretty sure there is something fundamental I’m missing, so any insights for how to get the current section would be appreciated!

2

Hi there,

It would be easier to help you if we were able to replicate your issue. Do you have your code somewhere we can have a look at?

See: Requesting Help

3

Sure thing. Here’s the abbreviated shortcode I want to drop onto a page and have it filter (not implemented) on the child pages based on their current section:

{{% sectiontest  depth="2"  %}}

Here’s the sectiontest.html code:

{{ $depth :=  .Get "depth" | default 1 }}
<ul>
	<!-- For testing, not checking for IsHome -->
	{{ .Scratch.Set "pages" (.Page.Pages | union .Page.Sections) }}
	{{ $pages := (.Scratch.Get "pages") }}

	{{template "childs" dict "menu" $pages.ByWeight  "count" 1 "depth" $depth "pages" .Site.Pages }}

</ul>

{{ define "childs" }}
	<!-- "menu" contains the pages from location where shortcode is included -->
	{{ range .menu }}
	<!-- I want to filter based on the next child section below. Reference to .CurrentSection returns full page path -->
<p><a href="{{.RelPermalink}}" >{{ .Title }}</a> - Section: {{.CurrentSection}}</p>
<p>{{.Summary}}</p>
	<!-- Continue down until depth -->
	{{ if lt $.count $.depth}}
		{{if eq $.style "li"}}
<ul>
		{{end}}

		{{ if .Sections}}
			{{ .Scratch.Set "pages" (.Pages | union .Sections) }}
		{{else}}
			{{ .Scratch.Set "pages" .Pages }}
		{{end}}

		{{ $pages := (.Scratch.Get "pages") }}

		{{template "childs" dict "menu" $pages.ByWeight   "count" (add $.count 1) "depth" $.depth "pages" $.pages }}
		{{if eq $.style "li"}}
</ul>
		{{end}}
	{{end}}
{{end}}

<!-- shortcode end -->
{{end}}
4

Just to follow up. I can get the string value I want by calculating the string value of .CurrentSection with this:

{{ $elements := index (split .CurrentSection /) }}
{{ $section := index $elements (sub (len $elements) 2) }}

If .CurrentSection contains Page(/animals/dog/_index.md), I will get dog. In reading the docs, I would think that’s the value .CurrentSection should return. Is the string value what is expected for that Section variable.

5 
{{ .CurrentSection.Title }}

When troubleshooting, you can use this approach to determine type:

{{ printf "%T" .CurrentSection }}<br>
{{ printf "%T" .CurrentSection.Title }}<br>
2 Likes
6

.Section returns the folder name off of the content/ folder, while .CurrentSection.Title returns the title, which is the same for .Title? It may be I don’t understand some of the terminology of returned section values and there are other aspects of Hugo where it is relevant?

In my case I have a working solution by splitting .CurrentSection which returns the folder path.

7

https://gohugo.io/variables/page/#section-variables-and-methods

8

I’m starting to grok how the variables and methods are listed. When I read this for .CurrentSection:

The page’s current section. The value can be the page itself if it is a section or the homepage.

then I don’t see the difference between .Page and .CurrentSection. Unless it’s only when processing the homepage?

9 
content
├── animals
│   ├── cat
│   │   ├── persian
│   │   │   └── index.md (1) (no underscore in file name)
│   │   └── _index.md (2)
│   └── _index.md (3)
└── _index.md (4)

1) content/animals/cat/persian/index.md (kind: page)

.Title = Persian
.CurrentSection.Title = Cats

2) content/animals/cat/_index.md (kind: section)

.Title = Cats
.CurrentSection.Title = Cats

3) content/animals/_index.md (kind: section)

.Title = Animals
.CurrentSection.Title = Animals

4) content/_index.md (kind: section)

.Title = My Site
.CurrentSection.Title = My Site

Note that cat was pluralized to cats when displaying the title. To disable, set pluralizeListTitles = false in config.toml.

10

Ah, now this makes sense. Value and pluralization set based on page type (leaf/branch), and that derives the section based on title. So I should be matching on actual frontmatter title.