Today I learnt how to use view engine with Express framework.
To use a view engine, you need to declare it in the runner (routes) file i.e. app.js. It's done with a function app.set('view engine, 'ENGINE NAME'). Then, we need to tell Express where these view files will be stored as such app.set('views', './src/views'). Finally, to return a view as a response to a route request, res.render is used.
For example, to use EJS view engine, the app.js file would looks as follows:
app.set('views', './src/views');
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
res.render('index', {
title: 'Hello from render',
list: ['a', 'b']
});
});Notice how we pass a JSON object as a second parameter to res.render. The variables declared in the object are available in the rendered view file and can be used as such:
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<% for(var i = 0; i < list.length; i++) { %>
<li><a><%= list[i] %></a></li>
<% } %>
</ul>