Expose helpers and local variables to the client-side.
$ npm install express-expose
var express = require('express')
, expose = require('express-expose');
app.expose(...);
Versions 0.3.0 and above are designed for Express 3.x, below for 2.x.
A common use-case for exposing objects to the client-side would be exposing some properties, perhaps the express configuration. The call to app.expose(obj) below defaults to exposing the properties to app.*, so for example app.views, app.title, etc.
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.set('title', 'Example');
app.set('default language', 'en');
app.expose(app.settings);
Another use-case would be exposing helper methods, perhaps the same ones as you are currently exposing to templates. Below we expose the math object as utilities to our templates, as well as the client-side. Within a template we would call add(1,2), and on the CS we would call utils.add(1,2), since we have passed the namespace "utils".
var math = { add: function(a,b){ return a + b; } };
app.expose(math, 'utils').helpers(math);
Sometimes you might want to output to a different area, so for this we can pass an additional param "languages" which tells express which buffer to write to, which ends up providing us with the local variable "languages" in our template, where the default is "javascript". The "app" string here is the namespace.
app.expose({ en: 'English', fr: 'French' }, 'app', 'languages');
You'll then want to output the default buffer (or others) to your template, in Jade this would look something like:
script!= javascript
And in EJS:
<script><%- javascript %></script>
It is also possible to expose "raw" javascript strings.
app.expose('var some = "variable";');
Optionally passing the destination buffer, providing us with the "head" local variable, instead of the default of "javascript".
app.expose('var some = "variable";', 'head');
Exposing a named function is easy too, simply pass it in with an optional buffer name for placement within a template much like above.
app.expose(function someFunction(){
return 'yay';
}, 'foot');
Another alternative is passing an anonymous function, which executes itself, creating a "wrapper" function.
app.expose(function(){
function notify() {
alert('this will execute right away :D');
}
notify();
});
Finally we can apply all of the above at the request-level as well, below we expose "app.current.user" as { name: 'tj' }, for the specific request only.
app.get('/', function(req, res){
var user = { name: 'tj' };
res.expose(user, 'app.current.user');
res.render('index', { layout: false });
});
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2012 TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.