Passing a variable from node.js to html

Question

I am trying to pass a variable from node.js to my HTML file.

app.get('/main', function(req, res) {   var name = 'hello';   res.render(__dirname + "/views/layouts/main.html", {name:name}); }); 

Answer 1

I figured it out I was able to pass a variable like this

<script>var name = "<%= name %>";</script> console.log(name); 

Answer 2

What you can utilize is some sort of templating engine like pug (formerly jade). To enable it you should do the following:

1. npm install --save pug - to add it to the project and package.json file
2. app.set('view engine', 'pug'); - register it as a view engine in express
3. create a ./views folder and add a simple .pug file like so:

html   head     title= title   body     h1= message 

note that the spacing is very important!

4. create a route that returns the processed html:

app.get('/', function (req, res) {   res.render('index', { title: 'Hey', message: 'Hello there!'}); }); 

This will render an index.html page with the variables passed in node.js changed to the values you have provided. This has been taken directly from the expressjs templating engine page: http://expressjs.com/en/guide/using-template-engines.html

For more info on pug you can also check: https://github.com/pugjs/pug