Pug.js tutorial
last modified October 18, 2023
The pug.js tutorial presents the Pug template engine.
Pug
Pug is a JavaScript template engine. It is is a high-performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node.js and browsers. Pug was formerly calle Jade.
Template engine
A template engine or template processor is a library designed to combine templates with a data model to produce documents. Template engines are often used to generate large amounts of emails, in source code preprocessing, or producing dynamic HTML pages.
We create a template engine, where we define static parts and dynamic parts. The dynamic parts are later replaced with data. The rendering function later combines the templates with data.
Setting up Pug.js
First, we install Pug.js.
$ npm init -y
We initiate a new Node application.
$ npm i pug
We install pug module with nmp i pug.
Pug.js rendering from string
We start with a very simple example that renders from a string.
import { render } from 'pug';
const template = 'p #{name} is a #{occupation}';
const data = { 'name': 'John Doe', 'occupation': 'gardener' };
const output = render(template, data);
console.log(output);
The example shows output from a string template.
import { render } from 'pug';
We load the render function from pug module.
const template = 'p #{name} is a #{occupation}';
This is our simple string template. The first value is the tag to be rendered.
In addition, we add two variables: nameand occupation.
To output the variables we use the #{} syntax.
const data = { 'name': 'John doe', 'occupation': 'gardener' };
This is the data that we pass to the template engine.
const output = render(template, data);
The render function takes a template string and the context
data. It compiles both into the final string output.
$ node app.js <p>John Doe is a gardener</p>
Pug.js compileFile
The compileFile function compiles a Pug template from a file to a
function which can be rendered multiple times with different locals.
p Hello #{name}!
This is the template file; it has a .pug extension.
import { compileFile } from 'pug';
const cfn = compileFile('template.pug');
const res = cfn({'name': 'John Doe'});
console.log(res);
const res2 = cfn({'name': 'Roger Roe'});
console.log(res2);
We compile the template to a function and call the function with two different local data.
$ node app.js <p>Hello John Doe!</p> <p>Hello Roger Roe!</p>
Pug.js renderFile
The renderFile function compiles a Pug template from a file and
render it with locals to HTML string.
doctype html
html
body
ul
li Name: #{name}
li Occupation: #{occupation}
In the tempalte, we have a small HTML document with an unordered list. We have two variables.
import { renderFile } from 'pug';
const options = { 'pretty': true }
const locals = { 'name': 'John doe', 'occupation': 'gardener', };
const res = renderFile('template.pug', Object.assign(locals, options));
console.log(res);
We merge the locals and the options with Object.assign;
const options = { 'pretty': true }
In the options map, we set the pretty printing. (Note that this option is deprecated.)
$ node app.js
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<ul>
<li>Name: John doe</li>
<li>Occupation: gardener</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Pug.js passing a list of data
In the following example, we pass a list of data to the template engine and process it.
doctype html
html
body
ul
each e in names
li= e
In the template, we use the each form to go over the list of data
passed to the template.
import { renderFile } from 'pug';
const names = ['John Doe', 'Roger Roe', 'Paul Smith', 'Rebecca Jordan'];
const res = renderFile('template.pug', { 'names': names });
console.log(res);
We define a list of names. The list is passed to the template engine in the
options with the names option.
Pug.js conditions
Conditions are created with if/else keywords.
doctype html
html
head
style.
.emp { background: lightGreen }
body
if emp
p.emp Today is #{today}
else
p Today is #{today}
In the template, we show en emphasized paragraph depending on the
emp option.
style.
With the dot syntax, we can pass a block of text to the tag.
import { renderFile } from 'pug';
import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';
const today = new Date().toLocaleDateString()
const emp = false;
const output = renderFile('template.pug', {'today': today, 'emp': emp});
writeFileSync('index.html', output);
We get the current data and pass it along the emp variable to the
template engine. The emp determines whether the output is
emphasized. The resulting output is written to a file with
writeFileSync.
Pug.js table
In the following example, we read data from a CSV file and render it in an HTML table.
$ npm i csv
We use the csv module to process the CSV data.
id,name,price 1,Audi,52642 2,Mercedes,57127 3,Skoda,9000 4,Volvo,29000 5,Bentley,350000 6,Citroen,21000 7,Hummer,41400 8,Volkswagen,21600 9,Toyota,26700
This CSV data is rendered in an HTML table.
doctype html
html
body
table
thead
tr
each header in headers
th= header
tbody
each field in fields
tr
td= field.id
td= field.name
td= field.price
The data is displayed in an HTML table.
td= field.id
The td= syntax interpolates the field.
import { renderFile } from 'pug';
import { readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'fs';
import pkg from 'csv';
const { parse } = pkg;
const csvData = readFileSync('cars.csv').toString();
parse(csvData, { columns: true }, (e, records) => {
const headers = Object.keys(records[0]);
const template = 'template.pug';
const options = { 'fields': records, 'headers': headers };
const res = renderFile(template, options);
writeFileSync('index.html', res);
});
We read and parse the CSV data. We seperate the CSV data into headers and records.
Pug.js with Express.js
In the next example, we integrate Pug.js with Express.js web framework.
html
body
p Today is #{today}
The template is placed in the views directory.
import express from "express";
const app = express();
app.set('view engine', 'pug');
app.get("/today", (req, res) => {
let today = new Date();
res.render("index", {today: today});
});
app.use((req, res) => {
res.statusCode = 404;
res.end("404 - page not found");
});
app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log("Application started on port 3000");
});
The example is a small web application which shows the current date.
app.set('view engine', 'pug');
We tell Express to use Pug.
app.get("/today", (req, res) => {
let today = new Date();
res.render("index", {today: today});
});
We render the index template for the /today route.
Source
In this article we have used Pug.js to generate HTML documents from Pug templates and data.
