Loop over CSV rows in jekyll - ruby

Question

I'm encountering some issues with loading data from a csv file with jekyll.
I've made some custom collections using the following _config.yml seup:
collections_dir: collections
collections:
people:
output: true
publications:
output: true
Now I this is what my structure looks like (just showing the relevant parts):
.
├── collections
│   ├── _people
│   │   ├── x.md
│   │   ├── y.md
│   └── _publications
│       └── data.csv
├── index.html
└── _config.yml
When I try to loop over my collections using this link as a guide it doesn't seem to work
# except from my index.html file
{% for row in site.publications.data %}
<p>name: {{row.name}}</p>
{% endfor %}

Answer 1

I think you are after a data file, rather than a collection here. The main differences are:
Data files can have each item as entries in a single file, or separate files in a subfolder of _data
Collections have each item as a separate file only
Data entries do not output a page per entry
Collections can output a page per entry
Here's how you would change this to data:
Move collections/publications/data.csv to _data/publications.csv
Remove the publications entry from collections in _config.yml
Change your loop to the following:
{% for row in site.data.publications %}
<p>name: {{ row.name }}</p>
{% endfor %}
If you want to use a data file and output a page per entry, a popular plugin to do so is https://github.com/avillafiorita/jekyll-datapage_gen
Alternatively, you could split the CSV into separate Markdown files and use a collection to avoid adding a plugin.