Hay and needle question (Liquid)

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:27:17 +0000

I am trying to determine if a string of text contains a substring of text. How do I do this in Liquid? Just spent over an hour looking for the answer. Say I have 2 variables containing text: the variables hay and needle. For the sake of providing a working example, let's say I assign text to these variables, like so:

{% assign hay = 'caroline' %}
{% assign needle = 'line' %}

How do I know if my needle is my hay ?

{% if hay contains needle %}

... does not work of course.

Christocracy commented

Christocracy — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:23:24 +0000

You could use javascript.


{% assign hay = "caroline" %}
{% assign needle = "line" %}

<script type="text/javascript">

var hay = "{{hay}}";
var needles = hay.match("{{needle}}");
alert('match: ' + needles[0]);

</script>

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:38:33 +0000

The functionality I am getting at is very basic, so I’d rather use Liquid for it, if possible.

I am trying to read the URL from within collection.liquid. The URL contains a tag filter.

Let me give you an example of such URL:

http://shop.myshopify.com/collections/playback-graphics/compilation

From within collection.liquid, I must determine if the last argument in the URL is ‘compilation’ as the markup will be very different on that page in that’s the case. ‘compilation’ is a tag, it is the tag used to filter the collection.

The following will output /collections/playback-graphics:

So here’s what I need to set as condition:

{% capture myURL %}{{ collection.url }}/compilation{% endcapture %}
{% if myURL == 'collections/playback-graphics/compilation' %}
  <p>Hello, I am on a page where I show compilations.</p>
{% endif %}

The problem with this is that my mid argument in the URL (‘playback-graphics’) must be a wildcard. It could any number of 3 things for now. So the condition will be longer…

{% capture myURL %}{{ collection.url }}/compilation{% endcapture %}
{% if myURL == '/collections/playback-graphics/compilation' or myURL == '/collections/effects-shots/compilation' or myURL ==  '/collections/miscellaneous/compilation' %}
  <p>Hello, I am on a page where I show compilations.</p>
{% endif %}

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:00:20 +0000

Christocracy, I sure will use JavaScript. (By the way I did not know we could use a method like .match on a JavaScript String…). But I would rather not use it for functionality that can break the site if JavaScript is disabled, if at all possible. Within reason. :-)

@ Anyone who stumbles over this…

The capture tag is very handy. What it does is assign to a variable whatever comes between the opening and end tag.

Examples of use:

{% capture myVariable1 %}Hello!{% endcapture %}
<p>{{ myVariable1 }}</p>
{% capture myVariable2 %}Hello, the name of my store is {{ shop.name }}.{% endcapture %}
<p>{{ myVariable2 }}</p>

Will output…

Hello!
Hello, the name of my store is myShop.

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:45:46 +0000

NO! My solution does not work at all.

I still cannot read the ‘active’ tag. The filter tag.

Oh my god..

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:47:10 +0000

I really don’t see a non-javascript solution for this.

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:51:42 +0000

For this hay:

<a title="Show products matching tag comp-1" href="/collections/playback-graphics/comp-1"><span class="active">comp-1</span></a> <a title="Show products matching tag compilation" href="/collections/playback-graphics/compilation">compilation</a> <a title="Show products matching tag space" href="/collections/playback-graphics/space">space</a>

I may look for that needle:

<span class="active">comp-

That is SUPER ugly solution.

I just need to find the Liquid output that gives me the active tag/filter.

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:20:30 +0000

Solution to the hay and needle problem: the use of includes.

Thank you, Tobi.

{% if whatever includes 'tobi' %} 
  hi tobias
{% endif %}

HunkyBill commented

HunkyBill — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:59:31 +0000

Heya,

If you compare what you can do with Liquid, and what you can do with Liquid in Shopify, you’ll notice there is a gap in implementation… odd eh… wish it was not so…

Christina commented

Christina — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:15:46 +0000

Hi Caroline,

Stimulating conversation you had there with yourself!

How about this (untested, but similar things have worked for me):

{% capture standard_display %}
    [all that dull un-needlelike html]
{% endcapture %}

{% if current_tags.size > 0 %}
    {% for link in linklists.needle.links %}
        {% if current_tags.first == link.title %}
            [that sharp needle code]
        {% else %}
            {{standard_display}}
        {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
{% else %}
    {{standard_display}}
{% endif %}

requires making a linklist called “needle”, which contains the titles of your exceptional code pages.

current_tags is handy little thing; corresponds to segment 3 of the url

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:08:29 +0000

current_tags is handy little thing; corresponds to segment 3 of the url

No way! — I thought. And then I added this simplified snippet to my collection.liquid template, and what do you know, it woooorks!

{% if current_tags.size > 0 %}
The tag slash filter here is: {{ current_tags.first }}
{% endif %}

Searching the Shopify wiki turned up no result:
http://wiki.shopify.com/Special:Search?search=current_tags

Thank you, I just had a major breaktrough thanks to you. My layout depends within collection.liquid upon the tag filter I get, a.k.a the current tag.

As I understand we can filter a collection (in the ur) with more than one tag, since current_tags is an array…? I will check.

Christina commented

Christina — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:58:29 +0000

very welcome,
i’ve been around here for a while, and have done a lot of sleuthing and testing and toying. a number of things i’ve come across by pure chance/hardheadedness/playfulness are undocumented. if i had oodles of time, i’d write them up, but unfortunately, when playtime is up, i’ve got to forage, so i just scatter code here and there.

as far as i know, you’re now the second person to use current_tags

have fun! :)

and yes, you can filter with any number of tags. current_tags IS an array.

edited to add: this link might interest you.

renobird commented

renobird — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:16:25 +0000

Wow! I can't believe that current_tags is basically undocumented. I was searching and searching for a way to do exactly what it does - and as luck would have it - I stumbled on this. Thanks for the heads up Christina (I realize this thread is old news - but it's still super useful). ;)

Are there other gems out there that we should know about?

Current Status: Truce between head and desk.

Caroline Schnapp commented

Caroline Schnapp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:21:27 +0000

Wow! I can't believe that current_tags is basically undocumented.

Duly noted.

By the way, Christina was an amazing contributor here and was for a very long time. Wonderful woman.

There is another undocumented gem:

{{ current_page }}

Not to be confused with paginate.current_page, current_page can be used outside of your 'paginator'.

Scroll down to Dennis' comment (#25) here: http://support.myshopify.com/discussions/feedback/4268-conditional-for-first-page-of-a-collection-think-collection-landing-page-here

I will update the wiki today, and make sure I can provide a relevant example for each.

By the way, anyone can update the wiki. You need to register first over there, is all.

Jamie commented

Jamie — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:29:21 +0000

{{ current_page }}

I wouldn't get to gung-ho on this one yet. I am experiencing pagination bugs using this method and still trying to find a work-around for my work around. When using this in the form discussed the pagination page numbers are being doubled, and in some cases pagination beyond page 1 isn't printing any of the products it should be when it involves tags ie collections/my-collection/tag.

{{ if current_page == 1 }} may yield 8 pages when in fact there are only 5 if based on the paginate for everything beyond page 1. Frustrating.

Whatever you have 'offset' fails to be subtracted from the paginators first page. So in other words on page 1 it is paginating by the defined paginate for current_page == 1 and creating pages for that count per page, when you get to page two, you will find the pagination numbers that are not taken into account initially. Haven't found a work around to trick this into shape yet.

renobird commented

renobird — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:48:06 +0000

By the way, Christina was an amazing contributor here and was for a very long time. Wonderful woman.

No longer contributes here?

By the way, anyone can update the wiki. You need to register first over there, is all.

Thanks for the heads up. :)