Local File Templates

Traverse Local Files

With Hugo’s readDir and readFile template functions, you can traverse your website’s files on your server.

Use readDir

The readDir function returns an array of os.FileInfo. It takes the file’s path as a single string argument. This path can be to any directory of your website (i.e., as found on your server’s file system).

Whether the path is absolute or relative does not matter because—at least for readDir—the root of your website (typically ./public/) in effect becomes both:

1. The file system root
2. The current working directory

readDir Example: List Directory Files

This shortcode creates a link to each of the files in a directory—display as the file’s basename—along with the file’s size in bytes.

{{- $pathURL := .Get "pathURL" -}}
{{- $path := .Get "path" -}}
{{- $files := readDir $path -}}
<table>
    <th>Size in bytes</th>
    <th>Name</th>
{{- range $files }}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ .Size }}</td>
        <td><a href="{{ $pathURL }}{{ .Name | relURL }}" target="_blank"> {{ .Name }}</a></td>
    </tr>
{{- end }}
</table>

You can then call the shortcode as follows inside of your content’s markup:

{{< directoryindex path="/static/css" pathURL="/css" >}}

The above shortcode is part of the code for the Hugo docs. Here it lists this site’s CSS files:

Use readFile

The readfile function reads a file from disk and converts it into a string to be manipulated by other Hugo functions or added as-is. readFile takes the file, including path, as an argument passed to the function.

To use the readFile function in your templates, make sure the path is relative to your Hugo project’s root directory:

{{ readFile "/content/templates/local-file-templates" }}

readFile Example: Add a Project File to Content

As readFile is a function, it is only available to you in your templates and not your content. However, we can create a simple shortcode template that calls readFile, passes the first argument through the function, and then allows an optional second argument to send the file through the Blackfriday markdown processor. The pattern for adding this shortcode to your content will be as follows:

{{< readfile file="/path/to/local/file.txt" markdown="true" >}}

Here is the templating for our new readfile shortcode:

{{$file := .Get "file"}}
{{- if eq (.Get "markdown") "true" -}}
{{- $file  | readFile | markdownify -}}
{{- else -}}
{{ $file  | readFile | safeHTML }}
{{- end -}}

This readfile shortcode is also part of the Hugo docs. So is testing.txt, which we will call in this example by passing it into our new readfile shortcode as follows:

{{< readfile file="/content/readfiles/testing.txt" >}}

The output “string” for this shortcode declaration will be the following:

##### Hello World!

Testing one, **two**, *three*. Don't delete this sample file used in the [templates](/templates/) section of the Hugo docs.

However, if we want Hugo to pass this string through Blackfriday, we should add the markdown="true" optional parameter:

{{< readfile file="/content/readfiles/testing.txt" markdown="true" >}}

And here is the result as called directly in the Hugo docs and rendered for display:

Hello World!

Testing one, two, three. Don’t delete this sample file used in the templates section of the Hugo docs.