README.md


Embedded JavaScript templates


Installation

$ npm install ejs


Features


Control flow with <% %>

Escaped output with <%= %> (escape function configurable)
Unescaped raw output with <%- %>

Newline-trim mode ('newline slurping') with -%> ending tag
Whitespace-trim mode (slurp all whitespace) for control flow with <%_ _%>

Custom delimiters (e.g. [? ?] instead of <% %>)
Includes
Client-side support
Static caching of intermediate JavaScript
Static caching of templates
Complies with the Express view system


Example

<% if (user) { %>
  <h2><%= user.name %></h2>
<% } %>


Try EJS online at: https://ionicabizau.github.io/ejs-playground/.


Basic usage

let template = ejs.compile(str, options);
template(data);
// => Rendered HTML string

ejs.render(str, data, options);
// => Rendered HTML string

ejs.renderFile(filename, data, options, function(err, str){
    // str => Rendered HTML string
});


It is also possible to use ejs.render(dataAndOptions); where you pass
everything in a single object. In that case, you'll end up with local variables
for all the passed options. However, be aware that your code could break if we
add an option with the same name as one of your data object's properties.
Therefore, we do not recommend using this shortcut.


Options


cache                 Compiled functions are cached, requires filename


filename              The name of the file being rendered. Not required if you
are using renderFile(). Used by cache to key caches, and for includes.

root                  Set project root for includes with an absolute path (e.g, /file.ejs).
Can be array to try to resolve include from multiple directories.

views                 An array of paths to use when resolving includes with relative paths.

context               Function execution context

compileDebug          When false no debug instrumentation is compiled

client                When true, compiles a function that can be rendered
in the browser without needing to load the EJS Runtime
(ejs.min.js).

delimiter             Character to use for inner delimiter, by default '%'

openDelimiter         Character to use for opening delimiter, by default '<'

closeDelimiter        Character to use for closing delimiter, by default '>'

debug                 Outputs generated function body

strict                When set to true, generated function is in strict mode

_with                 Whether or not to use with() {} constructs. If false
then the locals will be stored in the locals object. Set to false in strict mode.

destructuredLocals    An array of local variables that are always destructured from
the locals object, available even in strict mode.

localsName            Name to use for the object storing local variables when not using
with Defaults to locals


rmWhitespace          Remove all safe-to-remove whitespace, including leading
and trailing whitespace. It also enables a safer version of -%> line
slurping for all scriptlet tags (it does not strip new lines of tags in
the middle of a line).

escape                The escaping function used with <%= construct. It is
used in rendering and is .toString()ed in the generation of client functions.
(By default escapes XML).

outputFunctionName    Set to a string (e.g., 'echo' or 'print') for a function to print
output inside scriptlet tags.

async                 When true, EJS will use an async function for rendering. (Depends
on async/await support in the JS runtime.

includer              Custom function to handle EJS includes, receives (originalPath, parsedPath)
parameters, where originalPath is the path in include as-is and parsedPath is the
previously resolved path. Should return an object { filename, template },
you may return only one of the properties, where filename is the final parsed path and template
is the included content.


This project uses JSDoc. For the full public API
documentation, clone the repository and run npm run doc. This will run JSDoc
with the proper options and output the documentation to out/. If you want
the both the public & private API docs, run npm run devdoc instead.


Tags


<%              'Scriptlet' tag, for control-flow, no output

<%_             'Whitespace Slurping' Scriptlet tag, strips all whitespace before it

<%=             Outputs the value into the template (escaped)

<%-             Outputs the unescaped value into the template

<%#             Comment tag, no execution, no output

<%%             Outputs a literal '<%'

%%>             Outputs a literal '%>'

%>              Plain ending tag

-%>             Trim-mode ('newline slurp') tag, trims following newline

_%>             'Whitespace Slurping' ending tag, removes all whitespace after it


For the full syntax documentation, please see docs/syntax.md.


Includes

Includes either have to be an absolute path, or, if not, are assumed as
relative to the template with the include call. For example if you are
including ./views/user/show.ejs from ./views/users.ejs you would
use <%- include('user/show') %>.

You must specify the filename option for the template with the include
call unless you are using renderFile().

You'll likely want to use the raw output tag (<%-) with your include to avoid
double-escaping the HTML output.

<ul>
  <% users.forEach(function(user){ %>
    <%- include('user/show', {user: user}) %>
  <% }); %>
</ul>


Includes are inserted at runtime, so you can use variables for the path in the
include call (for example <%- include(somePath) %>). Variables in your
top-level data object are available to all your includes, but local variables
need to be passed down.

NOTE: Include preprocessor directives (<% include user/show %>) are
not supported in v3.0+.


Custom delimiters

Custom delimiters can be applied on a per-template basis, or globally:

let ejs = require('ejs'),
    users = ['geddy', 'neil', 'alex'];

// Just one template
ejs.render('<p>[?= users.join(" | "); ?]</p>', {users: users}, {delimiter: '?', openDelimiter: '[', closeDelimiter: ']'});
// => '<p>geddy | neil | alex</p>'

// Or globally
ejs.delimiter = '?';
ejs.openDelimiter = '[';
ejs.closeDelimiter = ']';
ejs.render('<p>[?= users.join(" | "); ?]</p>', {users: users});
// => '<p>geddy | neil | alex</p>'


Caching

EJS ships with a basic in-process cache for caching the intermediate JavaScript
functions used to render templates. It's easy to plug in LRU caching using
Node's lru-cache library:

let ejs = require('ejs'),
    LRU = require('lru-cache');
ejs.cache = LRU(100); // LRU cache with 100-item limit


If you want to clear the EJS cache, call ejs.clearCache. If you're using the
LRU cache and need a different limit, simple reset ejs.cache to a new instance
of the LRU.


Custom file loader

The default file loader is fs.readFileSync, if you want to customize it, you can set ejs.fileLoader.

let ejs = require('ejs');
let myFileLoad = function (filePath) {
  return 'myFileLoad: ' + fs.readFileSync(filePath);
};

ejs.fileLoader = myFileLoad;


With this feature, you can preprocess the template before reading it.


Layouts

EJS does not specifically support blocks, but layouts can be implemented by
including headers and footers, like so:

<%- include('header') -%>
<h1>
  Title
</h1>
<p>
  My page
</p>
<%- include('footer') -%>


Client-side support

Go to the Latest Release, download
./ejs.js or ./ejs.min.js. Alternately, you can compile it yourself by cloning
the repository and running jake build (or $(npm bin)/jake build if jake is
not installed globally).

Include one of these files on your page, and ejs should be available globally.


Example

<div id="output"></div>
<script src="ejs.min.js"></script>
<script>
  let people = ['geddy', 'neil', 'alex'],
      html = ejs.render('<%= people.join(", "); %>', {people: people});
  // With jQuery:
  $('#output').html(html);
  // Vanilla JS:
  document.getElementById('output').innerHTML = html;
</script>


Caveats

Most of EJS will work as expected; however, there are a few things to note:


Obviously, since you do not have access to the filesystem, ejs.renderFile() won't work.
For the same reason, includes do not work unless you use an include callback. Here is an example:
```javascript
let str = "Hello <%= include('file', {person: 'John'}); %>",
  fn = ejs.compile(str, {client: true});


fn(data, null, function(path, d){ // include callback
    // path -> 'file'
    // d -> {person: 'John'}
    // Put your code here
    // Return the contents of file as a string
  }); // returns rendered string


See the [examples folder](https://github.com/mde/ejs/tree/master/examples) for more details.

## CLI

EJS ships with a full-featured CLI. Available options are similar to those used in JavaScript code:

  - `-o / --output-file FILE`            Write the rendered output to FILE rather than stdout.
  - `-f / --data-file FILE`              Must be JSON-formatted. Use parsed input from FILE as data for rendering.
  - `-i / --data-input STRING`           Must be JSON-formatted and URI-encoded. Use parsed input from STRING as data for rendering.
  - `-m / --delimiter CHARACTER`         Use CHARACTER with angle brackets for open/close (defaults to %).
  - `-p / --open-delimiter CHARACTER`    Use CHARACTER instead of left angle bracket to open.
  - `-c / --close-delimiter CHARACTER`   Use CHARACTER instead of right angle bracket to close.
  - `-s / --strict`                      When set to `true`, generated function is in strict mode
  - `-n / --no-with`                     Use 'locals' object for vars rather than using `with` (implies --strict).
  - `-l / --locals-name`                 Name to use for the object storing local variables when not using `with`.
  - `-w / --rm-whitespace`               Remove all safe-to-remove whitespace, including leading and trailing whitespace.
  - `-d / --debug`                       Outputs generated function body
  - `-h / --help`                        Display this help message.
  - `-V/v / --version`                   Display the EJS version.

Here are some examples of usage:

```shell
$ ejs -p [ -c ] ./template_file.ejs -o ./output.html
$ ejs ./test/fixtures/user.ejs name=Lerxst
$ ejs -n -l _ ./some_template.ejs -f ./data_file.json


Data input

There is a variety of ways to pass the CLI data for rendering.

Stdin:

$ ./test/fixtures/user_data.json | ./bin/cli.js ./test/fixtures/user.ejs
$ ./bin/cli.js ./test/fixtures/user.ejs < test/fixtures/user_data.json


A data file:

$ ejs ./test/fixtures/user.ejs -f ./user_data.json


A command-line option (must be URI-encoded):

./bin/cli.js -i %7B%22name%22%3A%20%22foo%22%7D ./test/fixtures/user.ejs


Or, passing values directly at the end of the invocation:

./bin/cli.js -m $ ./test/fixtures/user.ejs name=foo


Output

The CLI by default send output to stdout, but you can use the -o or --output-file
flag to specify a target file to send the output to.


IDE Integration with Syntax Highlighting

VSCode:Javascript EJS by DigitalBrainstem


Related projects

There are a number of implementations of EJS:


TJ's implementation, the v1 of this library: https://github.com/tj/ejs

EJS Embedded JavaScript Framework on Google Code: https://code.google.com/p/embeddedjavascript/

Sam Stephenson's Ruby implementation: https://rubygems.org/gems/ejs

Erubis, an ERB implementation which also runs JavaScript: http://www.kuwata-lab.com/erubis/users-guide.04.html#lang-javascript

DigitalBrainstem EJS Language support: https://github.com/Digitalbrainstem/ejs-grammar


License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0
(http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)


EJS Embedded JavaScript templates copyright 2112
mde@fleegix.org.