Front Matter

A front matter parser that extracts YAML metadata from the start of a file or string.

Front matter is a concept heavily borrowed from Jekyll, and other static site generators, referring to a block of YAML in the header of a file representing the file's metadata.

Usage

Suppose you have the following Markdown file:

---
title: "Hello, world!"
author: "izolate"
---

This is an example.

Use parse to parse a string, or parseFile to read a file and parse its contents.

import 'dart:io';
import 'package:front_matter/front_matter.dart' as fm;

// Example 1 - parse a string.
void example1() async {
  var file = File('/path/to/file.md');
  var fileContents = await file.readAsString();
  var doc = fm.parse(fileContents);
  
  print(doc.data['title']); // "Hello, world!"
  print(doc.content);       // "This is an example."
}

// Example 2 - read file and parse contents.
void example2() async {
  var doc = await fm.parseFile('path/to/file.md');

  print(doc.data['title']); // "Hello, world!"
  print(doc.content);       // "This is an example."
}

The returned document is an instance of FrontMatterDocument with properties:

• YamlMap data - The front matter.
• String content - The content body.

To convert the document back to the initial string value, call toString().

var text = '---\nfoo: bar\n---\nHello, world!';
var doc = fm.parse(text);

assert(doc.toString(), equals(text)); // true

API

parse(String text, {String delimiter = "---"})

Parses a string, returns a FrontMatterDocument with front matter and body content.

parseFile(String path, {String delimiter = "---"})

Reads a file and parses its contents. Returns a Future<FrontMatterDocument> with front matter and body content.