Partial templates
Partial template lookup order
Partial templates—like single page templates and list page templates—have a specific lookup order. However, partials are simpler in that Hugo will only check in two places:
layouts/partials/*<PARTIALNAME>.html
themes/<THEME>/layouts/partials/*<PARTIALNAME>.html
This allows a theme’s end user to copy a partial’s contents into a file of the same name for further customization.
Use partials in your templates
All partials for your Hugo project are located in a single layouts/partials
directory. For better organization, you can create multiple subdirectories within partials
as well:
layouts/
└── partials/
├── footer/
│ ├── scripts.html
│ └── site-footer.html
├── head/
│ ├── favicons.html
│ ├── metadata.html
│ ├── prerender.html
│ └── twitter.html
└── header/
├── site-header.html
└── site-nav.html
All partials are called within your templates using the following pattern:
{{ partial "<PATH>/<PARTIAL>.html" . }}
As shown in the above example directory structure, you can nest your directories within partials
for better source organization. You only need to call the nested partial’s path relative to the partials
directory:
{{ partial "header/site-header.html" . }}
{{ partial "footer/scripts.html" . }}
Variable scoping
The second argument in a partial call is the variable being passed down. The above examples are passing the .
, which tells the template receiving the partial to apply the current context.
This means the partial will only be able to access those variables. The partial is isolated and has no access to the outer scope. From within the partial, $.Var
is equivalent to .Var
.
Returning a value from a partial
In addition to outputting markup, partials can be used to return a value of any type. In order to return a value, a partial must include a lone return
statement at the end of the partial.
Example GetFeatured
{{/* layouts/partials/GetFeatured.html */}}
{{ return first . (where site.RegularPages "Params.featured" true) }}
{{/* layouts/index.html */}}
{{ range partial "GetFeatured.html" 5 }}
[...]
{{ end }}
Example GetImage
{{/* layouts/partials/GetImage.html */}}
{{ $image := false }}
{{ with .Params.gallery }}
{{ $image = index . 0 }}
{{ end }}
{{ with .Params.image }}
{{ $image = . }}
{{ end }}
{{ return $image }}
{{/* layouts/_default/single.html */}}
{{ with partial "GetImage.html" . }}
[...]
{{ end }}
Inline partials
You can also define partials inline in the template. But remember that template namespace is global, so you need to make sure that the names are unique to avoid conflicts.
Value: {{ partial "my-inline-partial.html" . }}
{{ define "partials/my-inline-partial.html" }}
{{ $value := 32 }}
{{ return $value }}
{{ end }}
Cached partials
The partialCached
template function provides significant performance gains for complex templates that don’t need to be re-rendered on every invocation. See details.
Examples
header.html
The following header.html
partial template is used for spf13.com:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="no-js" lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns# fb: http://ogp.me/ns/fb#">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
{{ partial "meta.html" . }}
<base href="{{ .Site.BaseURL }}">
<title> {{ .Title }} : spf13.com </title>
<link rel="canonical" href="{{ .Permalink }}">
{{ if .RSSLink }}<link href="{{ .RSSLink }}" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{{ .Title }}" />{{ end }}
{{ partial "head_includes.html" . }}
</head>
footer.html
The following footer.html
partial template is used for spf13.com: