Portals won't let me populate a HTML table based on liquid for loop

[Anonymous]

I have a strange issue which is preventing me from populating a HTML table with rows based on the results of a for loop. Does anyone know if there is a setting that stops this from working? I am ultimately looking to loop through an array of results from a FetchXML query, which isn't working, it seems that Portals is not printing the results of the for loop when in a HTML table. To simplify the analysis I have taken FetchXML out of scope and are simply attempting to loop through five iterations, populating i in a table row, as you can see below the code is very straightforward;

When this code runs the table rows aren't populated, but the second loop (starting line 115) works fine. 

here is the generated HTML

Is there a site setting which could preventing this code from working? I've seen examples (such as this) which show that this technique should work ok. 

[chleverenz]

Hi @Anonymous ,

for me this renders perfectly:

the code:

<br>

Here 1

<br>

<table>

<thead>

<tr><td>Banana</td></tr>

{% for i in (1..5) -%}

<tr><td>{{ i }} </td></tr>

{% endfor -%}

</thead>

<tbody>

</tbody>

</table>

<br>

Here 2

<br>

{% for x in (1..5) -%}

{{ x }} <br>

{% endfor -%}

May be, its a cache issue. Try to reset the cache under <portalurl>/_services/about while logged in as an admin or just add an arbitrary parameter to the request like /?z=42 . This helps sometimes preventing caching on the whole lane 🙂

Hope this helps,

  Christian

PS is not an error but a hint: i try to balance the {% stuff. {%- means no linebreak and i try to use it in the opening AND the closing tag if i use it. Just adopted to this because otherwise i was always confused about my code where it produces newlines 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for checking, this is very strange, tried your code and it definately doesn't work on my portal (despite multiple cache resets)

Code

result, nothing but the table header

Makes me think that its a site setting or some kind of security feature thats preventing this from working

[chleverenz]

Hi @Anonymous ,

where are you using the liquid? in the header or footer template or in the page template? If the latter, are you using it with or without header/footerrendering?

No idea, whether this makes a diffrence. I tried as a page template with header/footer rendering.

Even if unlikely: could it be that the i is somehow used already? i tried assigning i a string before the loop but it still works...

This is really strange. I know of no setting telling me, that x is a valid name whilst i not 🙂

Have you copied your code to notepad or something? May be, you have strange characters in it (unlikekly, because my copied code does not work, too)

Sorry not to be able to assist,

  Christian

PS just checked: also ok, when i do not use header and footer in the page template. As we say in germany: i am at the end with my latin skills 🙂

[Anonymous]

very strange, my code is just placed within a webpage. I am using the starter portal template and have tried a few different page templates. I've even created a brand new web page just to test out your code again and it still won't render the rows when they are in html table. 

if the rows aren't in a HTML table then they work fine, ie:

produces;

[chleverenz]

Hi @Anonymous 

this is weired 🙂 - i put the stuff now in the copy field of the page and the table does not render as well. I usually place this code directly in the web-template itself

Just to make it even more strange: If i include my previously created template, it works:

Holla

<br>

Here 1.9

<br>

{% assign i = "Cucumber" %}

<table>

<thead>

<tr><td>Banana</td></tr>

    {% for i in (1..5) -%}

        <tr><td>{{ i }}</td></tr>

    {%- endfor %}

</thead>

<tbody>

</tbody>

</table>

<br>

Here 2

<br>

{% for x in (1..5) -%}

{{ x }} <br>

{% endfor -%}

<table>

<thead>

<tr><td>Banana Pi</td></tr>

    {% for i in (1..5) -%}

        <tr><td>{{ i }}</td></tr>

    {%- endfor %}

</thead>

<tbody>

</tbody>

</table>

Not the included one:

{% include "cl test template" %}

This smells like a bug 🙂

PS interestingly, the word "Cucumber" which was assigned to the variable i seems to be used in the youtput. As if the forloop with the "i" does not exist. 

Thanks for pointing this out - will keep this in my brain as a challenge 🙂

[chleverenz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

i found the reason: when you put the code in the adx_copy field the content is altered while saving. If you reload the whole page you can see, that the savingprocess moved the code like this:

<br>

{% for x in (1..5) -%}

{{ x }} <br>

{% endfor -%}

    {%- for i in (1..5) -%}

    {%- endfor -%}

<table>

<tbody><tr><td>Banana Pi</td></tr><tr><td>

        {{ i }}

</td></tr></tbody></table>

so, completely clear that is does not work as the forloop was moved out while saving.

Nevertheless: as you had to write this code in each and every adx_copy field i would highly recommend to create a specific webtemplate and either include it or better use it as your pagetemplate. You could copy the webtemplate of the used pagetemplate to a new one, add your code and make a new pagetemplate with that one. Then every page using that pagetemplate will use your table.

Thanks again for posting this problem. This really tells me not to trust the saving and the html editor...

Have fun,

  Christian

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for this @chleverenz , you have been very helpful! I am new to Portals, so didn't realise that it wasn't a good idea to add this kind of code to the copy section. Adding to a web template definately works, so i will use this approach going forward

[chleverenz]

Hi @Anonymous 

you're welcome. Thanks for accepting the response as a solution.

Have fun,

  Christian