Data Objects

While Render Engine is a static site generator, there are times when it might be useful to have machine-readable data available on your site. For example, if you wish to include a humans.json file it might be simpler to maintain as a Python dictionary and have Render Engine output the JSON.

DataObject

The DataObject base class allows for the rendering of a serializable Python object to the site's file system during site rendering.

Attributes

Name	Type	Description
data_object	Any	The object to serialize.
serializer	Callable	The function to serialize with.
serializer_args	dict	Optional kwargs to be passed to the serializer along with the object.
routes	list	List of directories to output the serialized object to.
path_name	str | Path	The filename to output the serialized data to.

The serializer is a function that takes a single positional argument and optional **kwargs. Should you wish to use a function with a different signature, you will need to write a wrapper around it.

The default serialize function is json.dumps.

Configuring a DataObject

There are 2 ways to configure a DataObject and add it to your Site:

1. Using the Site.data_object decorator:

   import toml
   from render_engine import Site, DataObject
   
   app = Site()
   
   @app.data_object
   class MyDataObject(DataObject):
       data_object = {'foo': 'bar'}
       serializer = toml.dumps
   

2. Using the Site.data_object method:

   import toml
   from render_engine import Site, DataObject
   
   app = Site()
   
   class MyDataObject(DataObject):
       data_object = {'foo': 'bar'}
       serializer = toml.dumps
   
   app.data_object(MyDataObject)