templar

A minimal template thing for node.js web sites to use.

Works with any template engine that works with Express.

Automatically sends ETags based on the data and the template being used, and 304 responses based on the If-None-Match request header, if the user would be getting the same exact response as last time.

Example

var ejs = require('ejs')
, Templar = require('templar')
, templarOptions = { engine: ejs, folder: './templates' }

// preload it.  Otherwise, the first request is slow, because
// it has to load up all the templates within it.
Templar.loadFolder('./templates')

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  // note that this causes a sync fs hit the first time if
  // the folder has not been loaded yet.
  res.template = Templar(req, res, templarOptions)

  // .. later, after figuring out which template to use ..
  res.template('foo.ejs', { some: 'data', for: [ 'the', 'template'] })
  //alternatively, you can add a boolean parameter to write to the response without ending it
  //res.template('foo.ejs', { some: 'data', for: [ 'the', 'template'] }, false)
  //just make sure you call res.end() on your own somewhere after that

}).listen(PORT)

Options

• engine: The engine to use. EJS and Jade both work.
• folder: The folder where template files are found.
• cache: Boolean. Set to false to suppress 304 responses and re-read templates without restarting the process.

Partials

Every template will be provided with a local function include(file, data). This function will include another template via a relative path, run it using the data provided, and return the string.

Note that this does not automatically dump the data into the calling template! It's still the caller's responsibility to actually print out the result.

Example

If the template full.ejs contains this:

<!doctype html ALL UP IN YOUR FACE>
<html>
<head><title>yoyoyoyo</title>
<body>
<%- include("partial.ejs", { partial: 1 }) %>
<%- include("partial.ejs", { partial: 2 }) %>
<%- include("partial.ejs", { partial: 3 }) %>
<%- include("partial.ejs", { partial: 4 }) %>
<%- include("partial.ejs", { partial: 5 }) %>
</body></html>

Then, in the same folder, you had a partial.ejs that contained:

<p>is for <%= partial %>

then the resulting output would be:

<!doctype html ALL UP IN YOUR FACE>
<html>
<head><title>yoyoyoyo</title>
<body>
<p>is for 1

<p>is for 2

<p>is for 3

<p>is for 4

<p>is for 5

</body></html>

Note that full.ejs actually prints out the result of the include call.