IsDescendant

Reports whether PAGE1 is a descendant of PAGE2.

Syntax: PAGE1.IsDescendant PAGE2
Returns: bool

Basic usage

With this content structure:

content/
├── auctions/
│   ├── 2023-11/
│   │   ├── _index.md
│   │   ├── auction-1.md
│   │   └── auction-2.md
│   ├── 2023-12/
│   │   ├── _index.md
│   │   ├── auction-3.md
│   │   └── auction-4.md
│   ├── _index.md
│   ├── bidding.md
│   └── payment.md
└── _index.md

When rendering the auctions page:

{{ with site.GetPage "/" }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → true
{{ end }}

{{ with site.GetPage "/auctions" }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → false
{{ end }}

{{ with site.GetPage "/auctions/2023-11" }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → false
{{ end }}

{{ with site.GetPage "/auctions/2023-11/auction-2" }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → false
{{ end }}

In the examples above we are coding defensively using the with statement, returning nothing if the page does not exist. By adding an else clause we can do some error reporting:

{{ $path := "/auctions/2023-11" }}
{{ with site.GetPage $path }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → true
{{ else }}
  {{ errorf "Unable to find the section with path %s" $path }}
{{ end }}

Understanding context

Inside of the with block, the context (the dot) is the section Page object, not the Page object passed into the template. If we were to use this syntax:

{{ with site.GetPage "/auctions" }}
  {{ .IsDescendant . }} → true
{{ end }}

The result would be wrong when rendering the auction-1 page because we are comparing the section page to itself. Use the $ to get the context passed into the template.

{{ with site.GetPage "/auctions" }}
  {{ $.IsDescendant . }} → true
{{ end }}

To write effective templates, you must understand how context works.

Last updated: November 8, 2026 : content: Remove categories from front matter (1cc1dd83a)

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