How to pass a parameter to pathFor in Handlebars for Iron-Router with Meteorite?

Question

I have a simple route with a parameter:

this.route('article', {
        path: '/article/:_id',
        data: function() { return Articles.findOne(this.params._id); }
    });

I would like to have use the pathFor handlebars helper here with the _id:

{{#each articles}}
<li><a href="{{pathFor 'article' _id}}">{{title}}</a></li>
{{/each}}

This doesnt work for passing the _id tag into the url though...

Solution 1

<li><a href="{{pathFor 'article' _id=this._id }}">{{title}}</a></li>

Thats how you pass a parameter

Solution 2

In your example you don't need to pass any parameters. The pathFor helper will automatically use the current data context and grab the property from that object. Since you have an {{#each articles}} iterator, the current data context for pathFor will be set to the current item in the list (an article). The article object should have an _id property on it, so the path helper will just work. If you wanted to change the data context, you could pass another object as a first parameter to the pathFor helper, or you could use the {{#with anotherDataContextObject}} block helper.

In v0.5.4, you could also use the Handlebars hash key values to replace the context object. In the dev branch this is no longer true. If you provide key value pairs as parameters in your Handlebars helper, those will be appended to the query string. To illustrate here's an example for the change in dev branch:

{{pathFor 'article' article q=some+query}}
//=> "/article/abcd/?q=some+query

Or

{{#with article}}
{{pathFor 'article' q=some+query}}
//=> "/article/abcd/?q=some+query
{{/with}}