Run 'onchange_after_' script based on expanded template contents

[woolsweater]

I would like to use the tip from the user guide about triggering an onchange_after_ script with another file, but with an expanded template as the trigger. In my case the template contents are shell code like the script, so it's problematic to include them directly with {{ template "foo" . }}. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any other way to do it that I can find.

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I have tried a few different things to hack this together:

The most obvious solution, moving the template contents into .chezmoitemplates/foo, and putting {{ template "foo" . | sha256sum }} into the script doesn't work because apparently the template action doesn't produce a string that can be passed to a function.

In the script {{ include (joinPath .chezmoi.homeDir ".foo") | sha256sum }} isn't effective because, when calculating the script's state, it uses the current contents of '.foo' (before chezmoi applies anything). I would have to run chezmoi apply twice in a row to make the trigger work.

Adding another layer of indirection: .chezmoitemplates/foo then .chezmoitemplates/foo-expanded that just contains {{ template "foo" . }}. The script then has {{ include ".chezmoitemplates/foo-expanded" | sha256sum }} but this of course includes the literal contents rather than post-expansion.

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Did I miss a way to make this work? If not, would that be a desireable feature for chezmoi?

I don't know Go or chezmoi's internals but the most straightforward solution appears to be a template helper function that can render a template to a string, so it can be passed to other functions: {{ templateAsString "foo" . | sha256sum }}.

[twpayne]

Have you tried the includeTemplate function?

[woolsweater]

Brilliant, that's what I missed! Thanks!