Golang new template not working

Question

When I run:

t, _ := template.ParseFiles("index.html")
t.Execute(w, nil)

the page loads fine. But when I try and run

t := template.New("first")
t, _ = t.ParseFiles("index.html")
t.Execute(w, nil)

the only thing that loads is a blank page. I am trying to change the delimiter values in a Golang html template and would like to make the template, change the delimiter values, then parse the file.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Answer 1

The first version works as you expect because the package-level ParseFiles function will return a new template that has the name and content of the first parsed file.

In the second case, though, you're creating a template named "first" and then parsing one with name "index.html". When you call t.Execute on "first", it's still empty.

You can fix the problem by either:

1. Using template.New("index.html"), so that the file name matches the template name you parse next;
2. Providing the template name you want to execute explicitly with t.ExecuteTemplate(w, "index.html", nil)