First, install gray-matter which lets us parse the metadata in each markdown file.
npm install gray-matter
Next, we’ll create a simple library for fetching data from the file system.
lib
, and…posts.js
inside with the following contents:import fs from 'fs' import path from 'path' import matter from 'gray-matter' const postsDirectory = path.join(process.cwd(), 'posts') export function getSortedPostsData() { // Get file names under /posts const fileNames = fs.readdirSync(postsDirectory) const allPostsData = fileNames.map(fileName => { // Remove ".md" from file name to get id const id = fileName.replace(/\.md$/, '') // Read markdown file as string const fullPath = path.join(postsDirectory, fileName) const fileContents = fs.readFileSync(fullPath, 'utf8') // Use gray-matter to parse the post metadata section const matterResult = matter(fileContents) // Combine the data with the id return { id, ...matterResult.data } }) // Sort posts by date return allPostsData.sort((a, b) => { if (a.date < b.date) { return 1 } else { return -1 } }) }
Now, let's import getSortedPostsData
inside pages/index.js
:
import { getSortedPostsData } from '../lib/posts'
Then, add getStaticProps
to pages/index.js
and call getSortedPostsData
inside.
export async function getStaticProps() { const allPostsData = getSortedPostsData() return { props: { allPostsData } } }
By returning allPostsData
inside the props
object, the blog posts will be passed to the Home
component. To see this, modify the component definition to take { allPostsData }
:
export default function Home ({ allPostsData }) { ... }
To display the data, add another <section>
tag at the bottom of this component:
export default function Home({ allPostsData }) { return ( <Layout home> <Head>…</Head> <section className={utilStyles.headingMd}>…</section> <section className={`${utilStyles.headingMd} ${utilStyles.padding1px}`}> <h2 className={utilStyles.headingLg}>Blog</h2> <ul className={utilStyles.list}> {allPostsData.map(({ id, date, title }) => ( <li className={utilStyles.listItem} key={id}> {title} <br /> {id} <br /> {date} </li> ))} </ul> </section> </Layout> ) }
You should now see the blog data if you access http://localhost:3000.
Congratulations! We’ve successfully fetched external data (from the file system) and pre-rendered the index page with this data.
Let’s talk about some tips for using getStaticProps
on the next page.