Client-side inline CoffeeScript

[aseemk]

Just an idea / feature request:

In general, you want client-side JavaScript in a separate, external file -- good for cacheability, separation of concerns, etc.

There are occasions though where you want a snippet of inline JavaScript in a <script> block. Maybe it's something page-specific, or something dynamically generated, or maybe this is just a quick prototype.

It would be super awesome and convenient if I could write that code in CoffeeScript, e.g. via <script type="text/coffeescript">, and have Eco automatically compile that to JavaScript. <3

[gasi]

+1 Great idea!

[aseemk]

Actually, <script type="text/coffeescript"> is both verbose and probably dangerous/tricky/non-trivial since it'd be part of regular HTML markup. So maybe something like:

<% _script: %>
    # This block of CoffeeScript will get compiled to JS and
    # sent back in a `<script>` block.
    console.log 'This will get logged in the browser.'
<% end %>

Not sure about _script, but I'm thinking some means similar to this.

[sstephenson]

You can implement this with a helper method.

CoffeeScript = require 'coffee-script'
eco = require 'eco'

template = """
  <h1>Hello world</h1>
  <%= @coffeeScriptTag -> %>
    console.log 'Hello world'
  <% end %>
"""

console.log eco.render template,
  coffeeScriptTag: (yield) ->
    script = CoffeeScript.compile yield()
    @safe "<script type=\"text/javascript\">#{script}</script>"

Produces:

<h1>Hello world</h1>
<script type="text/javascript">(function() {
  console.log('Hello world');
}).call(this);
</script>

Closing the ticket.