---
layout: docs
title: Templates
prev_section: migrations
next_section: permalinks
---

Jekyll uses the [Liquid](http://www.liquidmarkup.org/) templating language to process templates. All of the [standard Liquid tags and filters](http://wiki.github.com/shopify/liquid/liquid-for-designers) are supported, Jekyll even adds a few handy filters and tags of its own to make common tasks easier.

## Filters

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Description</th>
      <th><span class="filter">Filter</span> and <span class="output">Output</span></th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Date to XML Schema</strong></p>
        <p>Convert a Date into XML Schema format.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ site.time | date_to_xmlschema " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>2008-11-17T13:07:54-08:00</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Date to String</strong></p>
        <p>Convert a date to short format.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ site.time | date_to_string " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>17 Nov 2008</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Date to Long String</strong></p>
        <p>Format a date to long format.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ site.time | date_to_long_string " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>17 November 2008</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>XML Escape</strong></p>
        <p>Escape some text for use in XML.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ page.content | xml_escape " }}}}</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>CGI Escape</strong></p>
        <p>CGI escape a string for use in a URL. Replaces any special characters with appropriate %XX replacements.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ “foo,bar;baz?” | cgi_escape " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>foo%2Cbar%3Bbaz%3F</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Number of Words</strong></p>
        <p>Count the number of words in some text.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ page.content | number_of_words " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>1337</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Array to Sentence</strong></p>
        <p>Convert an array into a sentence. Useful for listing tags.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ page.tags | array_to_sentence_string " }}}}</code>
        </p>
        <p>
          <code class='output'>foo, bar, and baz</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Textilize</strong></p>
        <p>Convert a Textile-formatted string into HTML, formatted via RedCloth</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ page.excerpt | textilize " }}}}</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <p class='name'><strong>Markdownify</strong></p>
        <p>Convert a Markdown-formatted string into HTML.</p>
      </td>
      <td class='align-center'>
        <p>
         <code class='filter'>{{ "{{ page.excerpt | markdownify " }}}}</code>
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

## Tags

### Includes (Partials)

If you have small page fragments that you wish to include in multiple
places on your site, you can use the `include` tag.

{% highlight ruby %}
{{ "{% include sig.textile " }}%}
{% endhighlight %}

Jekyll expects all include files to be placed in an `_includes`
directory at the root of your source dir. So this will embed the
contents of `/path/to/your/site/_includes/sig.textile` into the calling
file.

### Code snippet highlighting

Jekyll has built in support for syntax highlighting of [over 100
languages](http://pygments.org/languages/) thanks to
[Pygments](http://pygments.org/). In order to take advantage of this
you’ll need to have Pygments installed, and the `pygmentize` binary must
be in your `$PATH`. When you run Jekyll, make sure you run it with
[Pygments enabled](../extras).

To render a code block with syntax highlighting, surround your code as follows:

{% highlight ruby %}
{{ "{% highlight ruby " }}%}
def foo
  puts 'foo'
end
{{ "{% endhighlight " }}%}
{% endhighlight %}

The argument to the `highlight` tag (`ruby` in the example above) is the language identifier. To find the appropriate identifier to use for the language you want to highlight, look for the “short name” on the [Lexers page](http://pygments.org/docs/lexers/).

#### Line numbers

There is a second argument to `highlight` called `linenos` that is
optional. Including the `linenos` argument will force the highlighted
code to include line numbers. For instance, the following code block
would include line numbers next to each line:

{% highlight ruby %}
{{ "{% highlight ruby linenos " }}%}
def foo
  puts 'foo'
end
{{ "{% endhighlight " }}%}
{% endhighlight %}

#### Stylesheets for syntax highlighting

In order for the highlighting to show up, you’ll need to include a
highlighting stylesheet. For an example stylesheet you can look at
[syntax.css](http://github.com/mojombo/tpw/tree/master/css/syntax.css).
These are the same styles as used by GitHub and you are free to use them
for your own site. If you use linenos, you might want to include an
additional CSS class definition for the `.lineno` class in `syntax.css` to
distinguish the line numbers from the highlighted code.

### Post URL

If you would like to include a link to a post on your site, the `post_url` tag will generate the correct permalink URL for the post you specify.

{% highlight bash %}
{{ "{% post_url 2010-07-21-name-of-post " }}%}
{% endhighlight %}

There is no need to include the file extension when using the `post_url` tag.

You can also use this tag to create a link to a post in Markdown as follows:

{% highlight html %}
[Name of Link]({{ "{% post_url 2010-07-21-name-of-post " }}%})
{% endhighlight %}