Install

Install with npm:

$ npm install --save start-matter

How does it work

start-matter parses front-matter either from a file path or from a string containing front-matter.

If supplied, smart-matter will parse a date input into a Javascript Date Object. When using the file(path) API, smart-matter will return last modified date of the file.

API

File

Input is a string with the full path to the input file.

Params

• input {String}: A full path string to the file with front matter.

Contents

Input is a string contents which returns an object.

Params

• input {String}: String with the contents of the file with front matter.

Examples

file (path)

const path = require('path');
const { file } = require('start-matter');
const sm = file(path.join(__dirname, 'file.markdown'));
console.log('matter', sm(str));

This assumes that file.markdown is formatted similar to this:

---
title: Hello World
permalink: hello-world
date: '2021-07-03 19:17:00'
tags: 
  - my
  - tags
---

## Hello world

smart-matter will parse this file and return an object like this:

{
    title: "Hello World",
    permalink: "hello-world",
    date: "2021-07-03 19:17:00",
    tags: [ "my", "tags" ],
    matter: "title: Hello World\n
        permalink: hello-world\n
        date: 2021-07-03 19:17:00\n
        tags: \n
          - my\n
          - tags\n",
    file: "/Users/mark/Documents/Code/smart-matter/tests/test.markdown",
    lastupdated: 2021-08-03T06:45:46.170Z,
    hash: "b10a8db164e0754105b7a99be72e3fe5",
    content: "\n\n## Hello world",
    dateObject: 2021-07-03T09:47:00.000Z,
    dateISO: "2021-07-03T09:47:00.000Z",
    error: null,
    empty: false
}

contents (string)

const fs = require('fs');
const { contents } = require('start-matter');
const filePath = fs.readFileSync('file.markdown', 'utf8');
const sm = contents(filePath);
console.log('matter', sm(str));

This assumes that file.markdown is formatted similar to this:

---
title: Hello World
permalink: hello-world
date: '2021-07-03 19:17:00'
tags: 
  - my
  - tags
---

## Hello world

smart-matter will parse this file and return an object like this:

{
    title: "Hello World",
    permalink: "hello-world",
    date: "2021-07-03 19:17:00",
    tags: [ "my", "tags" ],
    matter: "title: Hello World\n
        permalink: hello-world\n
        date: 2021-07-03 19:17:00\n
        tags: \n
          - my\n
          - tags\n",
    hash: "b10a8db164e0754105b7a99be72e3fe5",
    content: "\n\n## Hello world",
    dateObject: 2021-07-03T09:47:00.000Z,
    dateISO: "2021-07-03T09:47:00.000Z",
    error: null,
    empty: false
}

Object returned

Added values to the object are:

• matter: {String} The raw front-matter string
• content: {String} The contents of the file outside of the front-matter data
• date: {String} The original date value
• dateObject: {Date} The date value parsed onto a Javascript Date
• dateISO: {String} The date value parsed and formatted into an ISO Date
• hash: {String} This is the md5 hash of the front-matter title (if supplied)
• lastupdated: {Date} The last updated value of the file on the disk

Note: When using the file API more options are returned. Eg: file (the input file path) and lastupdated (the last updated date of the file on the disk)