Cast error for hugo new blabla/hello.md with custom theme (due to empty archetype file)

[Diti]

Hello!

After creating a new theme and attempting to use Hugo's builder for content, I get the following error: ERROR: 2014/06/01 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{}.

You can replicate the problem with Hugo v0.11 and the commands below.

hugo new site test && cd test
hugo new theme mytheme
printf 'theme = "mytheme"\n' >> config.toml
hugo new thispageworks.md
hugo new this/fails.md

Am I doing anything wrong? I think this may be a bug.

[Diti]

Actually, it's not a bug, it's a feature™.

Running the hugo new this/fails.md command doesn't fail if the current directory is the content/ one. I had read the documentation prior to posting this issue, but I had misunderstood that thing in bold:

This assumes it is being run from your working directory and the content path starts from your content directory.

[anthonyfok]

Hi @Diti,

Thank you for your bug report. Actually, I think something could be done to improve the behaviour.
If I understand correctly, the same problem that @Diti experienced with v0.11 remains with us today with v0.14-DEV:

/tmp$ hugo new site test && cd test
/tmp/test$ hugo new theme mytheme
/tmp/test$ printf 'theme = "mytheme"\n' >> config.toml
/tmp/test$ hugo new thispageworks.md
ERROR: 2015/03/25 Error processing archetype file: /tmp/test/themes/mytheme/archetypes/default.md
ERROR: 2015/03/25 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{}
/tmp/test$ hugo new this/fails.md
ERROR: 2015/03/25 Error processing archetype file: /tmp/test/themes/mytheme/archetypes/default.md
ERROR: 2015/03/25 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{}

Reason? themes/mytheme/archetypes/default.md is empty, and hugo new does not like that.
Ditto with a malformed archetypes/default.md. For example, if I were to write just this line:

author = "Anthony Fok"

in my archetypes/default.md file, without the expected surrounding +++ for denoting TOML, hugo new would give me the same cryptic ERROR: 2015/03/25 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{} error, which only a seasoned Go developer would understand. And no, we cannot / should not expect our Hugo end users to be Go developers.

I think one or both of the following should be done:

1. hugo new theme should probably generate a proper archetypes/default.md file, or just leave it out altogether.
2. hugo new [post] should catch a malformed archetype file error, and should explicitly tell the user that the archetype file is malformed instead of showing that cryptic error.

[CMHarrington]

I'm getting the same error when copying/pasting the code from Step 1 here: http://gohugo.io/content/archetypes/ into a new document.

Saving to archetypes/default.md, then trying to create new post/newfrontmatter.md gives me the same error. ERROR: 2015/04/05 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{}

I also heeded the caveats, and added an extra line after the end +++ hoping that would work, but it doesn't. (I don't seem to be getting an EOF error, rather a cast error as above)

FWIW, I've tried this on a linux machine (emacs), and on a mac (using BBEdit) Both are using standard unix LF for newlines.

[curtosis]

I'm getting this error as well with a custom theme. I have a valid archetype file (+++ fences and an extra empty line) in the theme.

[zachdyer]

I ran into this problem too. I just deleted the file. I don't think hugo new theme should create that file because it leads to this error and if it's not being used by create it.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.