How can I get Express to output nicely formatted HTML?
node.jsExpressPugPretty Printnode.js Problem Overview
When using Express for Node.js, I noticed that it outputs the HTML code without any newline characters or tabs. Though it may be more efficient to download, it's not very readable during development.
How can I get Express to output nicely formatted HTML?
node.js Solutions
Solution 1 - node.js
In your main app.js or what is in it's place:
Express 4.x
if (app.get('env') === 'development') {
app.locals.pretty = true;
}
Express 3.x
app.configure('development', function(){
app.use(express.errorHandler());
app.locals.pretty = true;
});
Express 2.x
app.configure('development', function(){
app.use(express.errorHandler());
app.set('view options', { pretty: true });
});
I put the pretty print in development because you'll want more efficiency with the 'ugly' in production. Make sure to set environment variable NODE_ENV=production when you're deploying in production. This can be done with an sh script you use in the 'script' field of package.json and executed to start.
Express 3 changed this because:
> The "view options" setting is no longer necessary, app.locals are the local variables merged with res.render()'s, so [app.locals.pretty = true is the same as passing res.render(view, { pretty: true }).
Solution 2 - node.js
To "pretty-format" html output in Jade/Express:
app.set('view options', { pretty: true });
Solution 3 - node.js
There is a "pretty" option in Jade itself:
var jade = require("jade");
var jade_string = [
"!!! 5",
"html",
" body",
" #foo I am a foo div!"
].join("\n");
var fn = jade.compile(jade_string, { pretty: true });
console.log( fn() );
...gets you this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<div id="foo">I am a foo div!
</div>
</body>
</html>
I doesn't seem to be very sophisticated but for what I'm after -- the ability to actually debug the HTML my views produce -- it's just fine.
Solution 4 - node.js
In express 4.x, add this to your app.js:
if (app.get('env') === 'development') {
app.locals.pretty = true;
}
Solution 5 - node.js
If you are using the console to compile, then you can use something like this:
$ jade views/ --out html --pretty
Solution 6 - node.js
Do you really need nicely formatted html? Even if you try to output something that looks nice in one editor, it can look weird in another. Granted, I don't know what you need the html for, but I'd try using the chrome development tools or firebug for Firefox. Those tools give you a good view of the DOM instead of the html.
If you really-really need nicely formatted html then try using EJS instead of jade. That would mean you'd have to format the html yourself though.
Solution 7 - node.js
you can use tidy
take for example this jade file:
foo.jade
h1 MyTitle
p
a(class='button', href='/users/') show users
table
thead
tr
th Name
th Email
tbody
- var items = [{name:'Foo',email:'foo@bar'}, {name:'Bar',email:'bar@bar'}]
- each item in items
tr
td= item.name
td= item.email
now you can process it with node testjade.js foo.jade > output.html:
testjade.js
var jade = require('jade');
var jadeFile = process.argv[2];
jade.renderFile(__dirname + '/' + jadeFile, options, function(err, html){
console.log(html);
});
will give you s.th. like:
output.html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html><head><title>My Title</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/stylesheets/style.css"/><script type="text/javascript" src="../js/jquery-1.4.4.min.js"></script></head><body><div id="main"><div ><h1>MyTitle</h1><p><a href="/users/" class="button">show users</a></p><table><thead><tr><th>Name</th><th>Email</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Foo</td><td>foo@bar</td></tr><tr><td>Bar</td><td>bar@bar</td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></body></html
then running it through tidy with tidy -m output.html will result in:
output.html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Linux (vers 25 March 2009), see www.w3.org" />
<title>My Title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/stylesheets/style.css" type=
"text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/jquery-1.4.4.min.js">
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="main">
<div>
<h1>MyTitle</h1>
<p><a href="/users/" class="button">show users</a></p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Email</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Foo</td>
<td>foo@bar</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bar</td>
<td>bar@bar</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Solution 8 - node.js
building off of oliver's suggestion, heres a quick and dirty way to view beautified html
-
download tidy
-
add this to your .bashrc
function tidyme() { curl $1 | tidy -indent -quiet -output tidy.html ; open -a 'google chrome' tidy.html }
-
run
$ tidyme localhost:3000/path
the open command only works on macs. hope that helps!
Solution 9 - node.js
In express 4.x, add this to your app.js:
app.locals.pretty = app.get('env') === 'development';