In Jekyll can I pass a reference to a site data set in front matter

Question

I have a layout used for the home page for different sections on my Jekyll site. On each of these pages I would like to have links to each item in the section, the details of which are stored in a YAML file in the site _data directory. My aim is to have the name of the site data variable in the section page front matter and pass this into the layout for rendering. For example:

Page Front Matter

---
sectionItems: site.data.sectionItems.awesomeSectionItems
---

...which is passed to the section home layout...

Section Home Layout

{% for item in page.sectionItems %}
    // Work with section item...
{% endfor %}

Unfortunately, when I run the site nothing appears. How would I go about doing this? I have also tried an include but this also does not work. I would like to avoid adding the for loop to each page, plus I would like the links to appear beneath the main content section.

Answer 1

You cannot use variables in front matter. You will have to use a content variable like {% assign sectionItems = site.data.sectionItems.awesomeSectionItems %} and then loop with {% for item in sectionItems %}.