Easy way to access global data in a page

[Zearin]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

This feature request was born out of #1526.

My original post:

I just want to print out all the data to look at how it’s structured.

I basically want to do the equivalent of a console.dir(…) or console.inspect(…), but print the data within a <pre>…</pre> element.

Can I do this?

How?

(To be clear, I am referring to global data.)

An obvious solution was nowhere to be found. But thanks to some help from @pdehaan and @Ryuno-Ki, I was about to figure out that a page can access all global data in 2 steps.

1. Create a debug filter in Eleventy’s config (@pdehaan’s example is here)
2. Use the debug filter like this: {{ collections.all[0].template.templateData.globalData | debug }}

This works…but it was tedious to pull off. And I would not have figured it out if it weren’t for the help I received in #1526.

Being able to “just look at” data is an important part of discovery, learning, and adoption of new tools. For example, now that I know I can do this, I plan to stick with Eleventy a little longer to see what I can do.

Describe the solution you’d like

I guess I would just like an easy-access variable available to do this.

• perhaps called globalData
• perhaps defaulting to globalData, but allowing the user to configure a different name
• perhaps something else?

Describe alternatives you've considered

N/A

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EDIT: Put my writing under the correct questions 👅
EDIT: Clarify that I mean global data, rather than front matter

[Zearin]

@zachleat Could this be part of the Eleventy 1.0 milestone?

[zachleat]

Howdy! I think the best way forward is over at #1919, can you upvote and subscribe over there?