How can I pass parameters in an include statement?

[patelis]

Description

I have a document in which there are identical sections (think like a report which covers different industries but each section has the same content, e.g. Banks, Health Care, TechCom).

What I want to achieve is that I have a main.qmd file and a _child_industry.qmd file, the latter being re-used within the main.qmd to render all different industries.

I'm working on Python and have attempted to add the following to my _child_industry.qmd, based on what I saw in the documentation:

#| tags: [parameters]

industry = "Default"

print(industry)

In main.qmd I've tried variations of the following:

{{< include _child_industry.qmd -P industry:"Banks" >}}

but it doesn't seem to work, I always get "Default" instead of "Banks" when I preview the document.

Is there something I'm missing, or is this something not supported?

I'm working in corporate infrastructure, latest version I have available is 1.3.353 on Ubuntu 20.04, Python 3.10.

[mcanouil]

Could you properly format your post using code blocks for code and terminal outputs? Thanks.
If your code contains code blocks, you need to enclose it using more backticks, i.e., usually four ````.
See https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#formatting-make-githubs-markdown-work-for-us.

Could you share a small self-contained "working" (reproducible) example to work with, i.e., a complete Quarto document or a Git repository? The goal is to make it as easy as possible for us to recreate your problem so that we can fix it: please help us help you! Thanks.

This being said, parameters are provided from the command line as documented: https://quarto.org/docs/computations/parameters.html

---

You can share a self-contained "working" (reproducible) Quarto document using the following syntax, i.e., using more backticks than you have in your document (usually four ````).
See https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#small-is-beautiful-aim-for-a-single-document-with-10-lines.

If you have multiple files (and if it is absolutely required to have multiple files), please share as a Git repository.

R	Python
````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: knitr --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{r} x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) y <- c(1, 4, 9, 16, 25) plot(x, y) ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````	````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: jupyter --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{python} import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] y = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25] plt.plot(x, y) plt.show() ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````

Additionally and if not already given, please share the output of quarto check within a code block (i.e., using three backticks ```txt), see https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#check.

[patelis]

Thanks, I'll try to make it more concrete with a better example. What I'm hoping to achieve (if feasible) is to pass arguments a child document in an include statement. If this is not supported or I'm using it wrong, maybe you have a suggestion for better implementation.

I have two files in the same directory, main.qmd and _child_industry.qmd
The examples are rather small so shared here instead of sharing a repo, let me know if you prefer otherwise.

main.qmd

---
title: "Industry report"
format: html
---

## Main part of the report

This is some information about different industries

{{< include _child_industry.qmd -P industry:"Banks" >}}

{{< include _child_industry.qmd -P industry:"Health Care" >}}

_child_industry.qmd

```{python}
#| tags: [parameters]
#| echo: false

industry = "Default"
```



```{python}
#| echo: false
print(f"This is section is about {industry}")
```

The goal would be to replace industry = "Default" with the parameters I pass in the include statement ("Banks", "Health Care").

Desired Output

Industry report
Main part of the report
This is some information about different industries

This is section is about Banks
This is section is about Health Care

Actual Output

Industry report
Main part of the report
This is some information about different industries

This is section is about Default
This is section is about Default

Just got home and tried this in new venv, below are the results of quarto check:

Quarto 1.4.553
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.1.11: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.69.5: OK
      Deno version 1.37.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.4.553
      Path: /opt/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2025.03
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /home/kpatelis/.TinyTeX/bin/x86_64-linux
      Version: 2024

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.10.10 (Conda)
      Path: /home/kpatelis/mambaforge/bin/python
      Jupyter: 5.5.0
      Kernels: python3

[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.4.1
      Path: /usr/lib/R
      LibPaths:
        - /home/kpatelis/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.4
        - /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
        - /usr/lib/R/site-library
        - /usr/lib/R/library
      knitr: 1.48
      rmarkdown: 2.28

[✓] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

[mcanouil]

Thanks for the added context which helped understand your use case.

Parameters are for document nothing else.

1.4.553 is a pretty old version, you really should consider upgrading to 1.6.42.

Take a look at the partials extension.
In general, there are more than 200 Quarto extensions, so worth to take a look: https://m.canouil.dev/quarto-extensions/

[patelis]

Apologies for the late reply, that worked like a charm!
Thanks a lot for the assistance!