use _variables.ym to populate author info

[nithinmkp]

Description

i wish to dynamically populate author info from _variables.yml so that it is reusable across projects. i am not able to get there.

my _quarto.yml file

project:
  title: "_variables"

my variables.qmd file

---
title: "_variables"
author: {{< var author >}}
---

## Quarto

Quarto enables you to weave together content and executable code into a finished document. To learn more about Quarto see <https://quarto.org>.

my _variables.yml file

author: 
  - name: Nithin.M
    orcid: 0000-0002-0939-7927
    affiliations:
      - id: kgp
        number: 1
        name: IIT Kharagpur
        department: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
        group: Research Scholar
    corresponding: true
    email: [email protected]
  - name: Siddhartha Chattopadhyay
    orcid: 0000-0001-8663-0246
    affiliations:
      - id: kgp_p
        number: 2
        name: IIT Kharagpur
        department: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
        group: Associate Professor
    email: [email protected]
  - name: Sohini Sahu
    orcid: 0000-0001-7293-5671
    affiliations:
      - id: kanp
        number: 3
        name: IIT Kanpur
        department: Department of Economic Sciences
        group: Professor
    email: [email protected]

i wish to know how we can use the entire author information and also only selected author in a later project

[cderv]

The author content you have in _variables.yml is the full metadata for author. Did you have a look at ways to share metadata ?

• See Shared metadata using _metadata.yml: https://quarto.org/docs/projects/quarto-projects.html#shared-metadata
• See Quarto profile for project: https://quarto.org/docs/projects/profiles.html

With those options, you can have metadata that can be merged with others. Did you try those options ?

[nithinmkp]

Thanks. These are great tricks I did not notice. But my issue is that {{ < var author >}} is not working. I was thinking of case of starting a new project where only two authors are involved, I could copy the _variables.yml and then use a subset of the authors

[cderv]

But my issue is that {{ < var author >}} is not working

I think you are expecting something that will not happen. See our doc : https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/variables.html#var

Variables can be either simple values or markdown content.

so you can't expect some sort of metadata expansion, where using var shortcode will magically fill up the whole author field when you do

author: {{< var author >}}

I was thinking of case of starting a new project where only two authors are involved, I could copy the _variables.yml and then use a subset of the authors

Generally to use variable you need to retrieved value by value. So maybe using {{< var author.2.name >}} for the second name. You won't be able to get an object as outputs. It does not work like that.

However, I don't know if it works in author field as author is a specially processed field, and this could happen:

• Variable substitution via shortcodes fails in icon and href fields of about links #10289

[nithinmkp]

author:

• name: {{< var author.1.name >}}
  as much i understand, this should work. But even this did not. Am i doing it wrong?

[cderv]

We need a simple reproducible example - maybe there is an issue in how var shortcode works with array values. 🤔

[nithinmkp]

---
title: "_variables"
author: 
  - name: "{{< var author.1.name >}}"
---

Update: This works. But it would have been still nice to have a way to populate a list

[nithinmkp]

Please find the repo

https://github.com/nithinmkp/_vafriables

[mcanouil]

What's the purpose of the repository? From #12412 (comment) you seem to have figured that you need to use quotes to ensure the shortcode is read as a string and not a YAML structure which it is not.

[nithinmkp]

i was wondering if there is a way to populate list here

---
title: "_variables"
author: {{< var author >}}
---

[mcanouil]

No, but that's not even in your repository and Christophe already answered this.
var is for scalar.
Christophe also pointed you towards the metadata merging and profiles.

Another solution is:

author: 
  - name: Nithin.M
  - name: Siddhartha Chattopadhyay
  - name: Sohini Sahu

title: My Document
metadata-files:
  - my-authors-list.yml

[nithinmkp]

Thanks. Second solution is kind of something I was looking for. I can just copy my-authors-list.yml to a new project directory.