Data files

Perron can consume structured data from YML, JSON or CSV files, making them available within your templates. This is useful for populating features, team members or any other repeated data structure.

Usage

Access data files using the Content::Data namespace with the class name matching your file's basename:

<% Content::Data::Features.all.each do |feature| %>
  <h4><%= feature.name %></h4>
  <p><%= feature.description %></p>
<% end %>

Look up one record with Content::Data::Features.find("feature-id").

File location and formats

By default, Perron looks up app/content/data/ for files with a .yml, .json, or .csv extension. For a features call, it would find features.yml, features.json, or features.csv. You can also provide a path to any data file, via Perron::Data.new("path/to/data.json").

Accessing data

The wrapper object provides flexible, read-only access to each record's attributes. Both dot notation and hash-like key access are supported.

feature.name
feature[:name]

Rendering

You can render data collections directly using Rails-like partial rendering. When you call render on a data collection, Perron will automatically render a partial for each item.

<%= render Content::Data::Features.all %>

This expects a partial at app/views/content/features/_feature.html.erb that will be rendered once for each feature in your data file. The individual record is made available as a local variable matching the singular form of the collection name.

<!-- app/views/content/features/_feature.html.erb -->
<div class="feature">
  <h4><%= feature.name %></h4>
  <p><%= feature.description %></p>
</div>

Data structure

Data files must contain an array of objects. Each record should include an id field if you plan to use it in associations:

# app/content/data/authors.yml
- id: rails-designer
  name: Rails Designer
  bio: Creator of Perron

- id: cam
  name: Cam
  bio: Contributing author