---
title: "Render a liquid template when the template is a liquid template"
description:
"How to render liquid templates when the template refers to other liquid
templates"
canonical_url: "https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/render-liquid-templates-when-the-template-refers-to-other-liquid-templates"
markdown_url: "https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/render-liquid-templates-when-the-template-refers-to-other-liquid-templates.md"
---
# Render a liquid template when the template is a liquid template
How to render liquid templates when the template refers to other liquid
templates
- Author: Sandip Mane
- Published: August 4, 2020
- Categories: Rails
[Shopify's Liquid Templates](https://shopify.github.io/liquid/) is a great way
for templating in Ruby on Rails applications.
If the template is as simple as this one then there are no issues.
```ruby
{% raw %}
{% if user %}
Hello {{ user.name }}
{% endif %}
{% endraw %}
```
However sometimes we have a liquid template which is using another liquid
template. Here is an example.
##### home.liquid
```handlebars
{% raw %}
{% partial 'header' %}
Home Page
{% endraw %}
```
In the above case `home.liquid` is using two other liquid templates `main.css`
and `header.liquid`.
Let' see what these templates look like.
##### main.css
```handlebars
{% raw %} * { color:
{{theme.text_color}}; } a { color:
{{theme.link_color}}; } {% endraw %}
```
##### header.liquid
```handlebars
{% raw %}
{% endraw %}
```
In order to include the assets and the partials we need to create liquid tags.
Let's create a tag which will handle assets.
```ruby
# app/lib/liquid/tags/asset.rb
module Liquid
module Tags
class Asset < Liquid::Tag
def initialize(tag_name, name, tokens)
super
@name = name.strip.remove("'")
end
def render(context)
new_context = context.environments.first
asset = Template.asset.find_by(filename: @name)
Liquid::Template.parse(asset.content).render(new_context).html_safe
end
end
end
end
```
Let's create a tag that will handle partials.
```ruby
# app/lib/liquid/tags/partial.rb
module Liquid
module Tags
class Partial < Liquid::Tag
def initialize(tag_name, name, tokens)
super
@name = name.strip.remove("'")
end
def render(context)
new_context = context.environments.first
# Remember here we are not passing extension
asset = Template.partial.find_by(filename: @name + ".liquid")
Liquid::Template.parse(asset.content).render(new_context).html_safe
end
end
end
end
```
Let's create a new initializer and we need to register these tags in that
initializer.
```ruby
# config/initializers/liquid.rb
require 'liquid/tags/asset'
require 'liquid/tags/partial'
Liquid::Template.register_tag('asset', Liquid::Tags::Asset)
Liquid::Template.register_tag('partial', Liquid::Tags::Partial)
```
Restart the server and now we can render the `home.liquid` template like this.
```ruby
template = Template.template.find_by(filename: "home.liquid")
attributes = {
organization: {
name: "Example"
},
theme: {
text_color: "#000000",
link_color: "#DBDBDB"
}
}
Liquid::Template.parse(template.content).render(attributes).html_safe
```
Here we have a simple implementation of the tags. We can do much more, if
needed, like looping over items to parse each item from the partial. That can be
done by registering a separate tag for the item and passing in the id of the
item so that the specific item can be found and parsed.
## Links
- [Human page](https://www.bigbinary.com/blog/render-liquid-templates-when-the-template-refers-to-other-liquid-templates)