Generate static site from JSON array

Question

I have a giant JSON array of every US state and city, along with other data about each of them. I'd like to iterate over the JSON and output a tree structure like this:

1. [Alabama]
   • index.html
   • [Abbeville]
     • index.html
   • [Adamsville]
     • index.html
2. [Alaska]
   • index.html
   • [Anchorage]
     • index.html
   • [Fairbanks]
     • index.html
3. ...etc

I'd have two layouts:

1. state.html
2. city.html

So far, I haven't found a great way to do this. A lot of static gens seem to have the ability to use JSON for meta data within content, but not for the primary source of content.

thanks!

Answer 1

The Middleman static site generator supports this. You use their dynamic pages to create a list of the pages to create. The data comes from their data file feature. Here are the links to the pages explaining these

https://middlemanapp.com/advanced/dynamic_pages/ https://middlemanapp.com/advanced/data_files/

You would do something like have states.yml containing the state and city data

- states
    - name: Alabama
      cities:
        - name: Abbeville
          pop: X
        - name: Adamsville
          pop: Y

and then create the proxy pages e.g.

data.states.each do |state|
  proxy "/#{state.name}/index.html", "templates/state.html", :locals => {state: state}
  state.cities.each do |city|
    proxy "/#{state.name}/#{city.name}/index.html", "/templates/city.html", :locals => {state: state, city: city}
  end
end