11ty

Eleventy Documentation

This is an older version of Eleventy. Full release history. Go to the newest Eleventy docs. You could try /docs/collections/ although it may not exist.

Documentation Pages

Collections (using Tags) #

While pagination allows you do iterate over a data set to create multiple templates, a collection allows you to group content in interesting ways. A piece of content can be a part of multiple collections, merely by assigning the same string value to the tags key in the front matter.

A Blog Example #

For a blog site, your individual post files may use a tag called post, but it can be whatever you want. In this example, mypost.md has a single tag post:

---
tags: post
title: Hot Take—Social Media is Considered Harmful
---

This will place this mypost.md into the post collection with all other pieces of content sharing the post tag. To reference this collection and make a list of all posts, use the collections object in any template (this example is using Nunjucks syntax):

<ul>
{%- for post in collections.post -%}
  <li>{{ post.data.title }}</li>
{%- endfor -%}
</ul>

Compare the post.url and special Eleventy-provided page.url variable to find the current page. Building on the previous example:

<ul>
{%- for post in collections.post -%}
  <li{% if page.url == post.url %} class="active"{% endif %}>{{ post.data.title }}</li>
{%- endfor -%}
</ul>

Tag Syntax #

You can use a single tag, as in the above example OR you can use any number of tags for the content, using YAML syntax for a list.

A single tag: cat #

---
tags: cat
---

This content would show up in the template data inside of collections.cat.

Multiple tags, single line #

---
tags: ['cat', 'dog']
---

This content would show up in the template data inside of collections.cat and collections.dog.

Multiple tags, multiple lines #

---
tags:
  - cat
  - dog
---

This content would show up in the template data inside of collections.cat and collections.dog.

Collection Item Data Structure #

<ul>
{%- for post in collections.post -%}
  <li>{{ post.data.title }}</li>
{%- endfor -%}
</ul>

Note in the above example that we output the post.data.title value? Similarly, each collection item will have the following data:

{ inputPath: './test1.md',
  fileSlug: 'test1', // fileSlug was added in 0.5.3
  outputPath: './_site/test1/index.html',
  url: 'test1/index.html',
  date: 2018-01-09T04:10:17.000Z,
  data: { title: 'Test Title', tags: ['tag1', 'tag2'], date: 'Last Modified' },
  templateContent: '<h1>This is my title</h1>\n\n<p>This is content…' }

Sorting #

The default collection sorting algorithm sorts in ascending order using:

  1. The input file’s Created Date (you can override using date in front matter, as shown below)
  2. Files created at the exact same time are tiebroken using the input file’s full path including filename

For example, assume I only write blog posts on New Years Day:

posts/postA.md (created on 2008-01-01)
posts/postB.md (created on 2008-01-01)
posts/post3.md (created on 2007-01-01)
another-posts/post1.md (created on 2011-01-01)

This collection would be sorted like this:

  1. posts/post3.md
  2. posts/postA.md
  3. posts/postB.md
  4. another-posts/post1.md

Sort descending #

To sort descending in your template, you can use a filter to reverse the sort order. For example, in Nunjucks it’d look like this (Liquid also has a reverse filter built in):

<ul>
{%- for post in collections.post | reverse -%}
  <li>{{ post.data.title }}</li>
{%- endfor -%}
</ul>

Overriding Content Dates #

You can modify how a piece of content is sorted in a collection by changing it’s default date. Read more at Content Dates.

---
date: 2016-01-01
---

Advanced: Custom Filtering and Sorting #

To get fancier with your collections (and even do a bit of your own custom filtering, if you’d like), you can use our Configuration API.

Inside of your .eleventy.js config file, use the first argument to the config function (eleventyConfig below) to call the API (note that module exports is a function and not an object literal):

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// API is available in `eleventyConfig` argument

return {
// your normal config options
markdownTemplateEngine: "njk"
};
};

You can use eleventyConfig like so:

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {

eleventyConfig.addCollection("myCollectionName", function(collection) {
// get unsorted items
return collection.getAll();
});

};

Return values #

Collection API Methods #

The data collection gets passed to the callback. You can use it in all sorts of ways:

getAll() #

Returns an array.

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Unsorted items (in whatever order they were added)
eleventyConfig.addCollection("allMyContent", function(collection) {
return collection.getAll();
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Filter using `Array.filter`
eleventyConfig.addCollection("keyMustExistInData", function(collection) {
return collection.getAll().filter(function(item) {
// Side-step tags and do your own filtering
return "myCustomDataKey" in item.data;
});
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Sort with `Array.sort`
eleventyConfig.addCollection("myCustomSort", function(collection) {
return collection.getAll().sort(function(a, b) {
return b.date - a.date;
});
});
};

Curious where the date is coming from? Read more about Content Dates.

Note that the last example adding the myCustomSort collection will be available in your templates as collections.myCustomSort.

getAllSorted() #

Returns an array.

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Use the default sorting algorithm (ascending by date, filename tiebreaker)
eleventyConfig.addCollection("allMySortedContent", function(collection) {
return collection.getAllSorted();
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Use the default sorting algorithm in reverse (descending dir, date, filename)
// Note that using a template engine’s `reverse` filter might be easier here
eleventyConfig.addCollection("myPostsReverse", function(collection) {
return collection.getAllSorted().reverse();
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Filter using `Array.filter`
eleventyConfig.addCollection("onlyMarkdown", function(collection) {
return collection.getAllSorted().filter(function(item) {
// Only return content that was originally a markdown file
let extension = item.inputPath.split('.').pop();
return extension === "md";
});
});
};

getFilteredByTag( tagName ) #

Returns an array.

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Get only content that matches a tag
eleventyConfig.addCollection("myPosts", function(collection) {
return collection.getFilteredByTag("post");
});
};

getFilteredByGlob( glob ) #

Returns an array. Will match an arbitrary glob (or an array of globs) against the input file’s full inputPath (including the input directory).

Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Filter source file names using a glob
eleventyConfig.addCollection("onlyMarkdown", function(collection) {
return collection.getFilteredByGlob("**/*.md");
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Filter source file names using a glob
eleventyConfig.addCollection("posts", function(collection) {
return collection.getFilteredByGlob("_posts/*.md");
});
};
Filename .eleventy.js
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
// Filter source file names using a glob
eleventyConfig.addCollection("posts", function(collection) {
// Also accepts an array of globs!
return collection.getFilteredByGlob(["posts/*.md", "notes/*.md"]);
});
};