Variable reference

Variable references allows using different variable names for the same values. Define system wide color schemes, global values for specific environments etc.

Declare variable references

A variable reference is declared like any other variable, except the value should be a variable name prefixed with %.

a_variable = "42"
variable_ref = "%a_variable"

Here %a_variable points to "42". Any template call to {{variable_ref}} will be replace by 42 when running bombadil link.

Layout example

The main idea behind variable references is to avoid repetition and inject values into multiple dotfiles. As you will see later in this documentation, references are meant to be mixed with profiles and scoped variable.

For now let us define a simple layout. Assuming we are using sway as a window manager, and our terminal is allacritty, we are going to define three separate variables files :

• A global variable file theme_vars.toml
• A variable file for alacritty alacritty_vars.toml
• A variable file for sway sway_vars.toml

# bombadil.toml
[settings]
vars = [ "theme_vars.toml", "alacritty_vars.toml", "sway_vars.toml" ]
# ... 

• theme_vars.toml contains all our system theme colors :

  red = "#ff0000"
  black = "#000000"
  green = "#008000"
  

• sway_vars.toml contain sway specific variables, some are references, some are static.

  sway_client_focused_background = "%black"
  sway_client_focused_border = "#ffff00"
  # ...
  

• alacritty_vars.toml uses references just like sway variables.

  alacritty_background = "%black"
  alacritty_cursor = "%green"
  # ...
  

In the next section we will see how to scope variables to a specific dot entry.