front-matter

Extract YAML front matter from strings.

This modules does not do any IO (file loading or reading), only extracting yaml front matter from strings.

This concept that was originally introduced to me through the jeykll blogging system and is pretty useful where you want to be able to easily add meta-data to content without the need for a database. YAML is extracted from the the top of a file between matching separators of "---" or "= yaml =".

Install

With npm do:

npm install front-matter

Example

So you have a file example.md:

---
title: Just hack'n
description: Nothing to see here
---

This is some text about some stuff that happened sometime ago

NOTE: As of front-matter@2.0.0 valid front matter is considered to have the starting separator on the first line.

Then you can do this:

var fs = require('fs')
  , fm = require('front-matter')

fs.readFile('./example.md', 'utf8', function(err, data){
  if (err) throw err

  var content = fm(data)

  console.log(content)
})

And end up with an object like this:

{ attributes: { title: 'Just hack\'n'
  , description: 'Nothing to see here'
  }
, body: 'This is some text about some stuff that happened sometime ago'
}

Methods

var fm = require('front-matter')

fm(string)

Return a content object with two properties:

content.attributes contains the extracted yaml attributes in json form
content.body contains the string contents below the yaml separators

fm.test(string)

Check if a string contains a front matter header of "---" or "= yaml =". Primarily used internally but is useful outside of the module.

Returns true or false

fm.test(string) #=> true || false

Contributing

front-matter is an OPEN Source Project so please help out by reporting bugs or forking and opening pull requests when possible.

Contributors

This module is awesome because of all the folks who helped out:

LICENSE (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

kenlimmj/front-matter