Unusable URL

A URL can’t be written to disk, or a permalink pattern can’t make one. A name in a URL, between its slashes, can’t contain < > : " | ? * \ % # or a control character, can’t end with a space or a dot, and can’t be ., .. or a name Windows reserves for a device, such as con. Statac applies these rules to every site, so a site that builds on one computer builds on all of them.

A pattern can use the placeholders {year}, {month}, {day}, {folder} and {name}, and {slug}, the page’s slug. It can also use a field declared in statac.yaml, such as {isbn} for fields.isbn: text or {book.author} for fields.book.author: text, and each page the pattern makes a URL for must have that field. The date placeholders need a page that has a date. The pattern of a page with each: can also use any field of the items or posts it makes pages for, such as {key} or {isbn}, and each item or post must have the fields the pattern uses.

What you’ll see

error  Unusable URL: there is no placeholder `{yaer}`
  Did you mean `{year}`?
  More: https://statac.dev/e/unusable-url/

In the terminal, the message also shows the file and line, if there is one, and marks the exact text.

Why Statac stops

A page that can’t be written would be missing from the site, and one that ends up somewhere you didn’t mean would be at the wrong URL.

How to fix it

Do what the message suggests: remove the character, correct the placeholder’s name, or give the page a date.

Example

In content/notes/index.md:

---
pages.permalink: /notes/{yaer}/{name}/
---

The placeholder is called {year}:

---
pages.permalink: /notes/{year}/{name}/
---

Its name

Name	unusable-url
In the terminal	statac explain unusable-url
To stop showing it	It stops the build, so it can't be quietened.