What Is Template Engine? Difference Between Handlebars And EJS Templating In Node JS

Here In We Will Discuss About The Various Differences, Advantages, And Drawbacks Of Both Of The Template Engines With Proper Practical Implementation.

As We Have Progressed In The Web Development, This Field Has Been Divided Into Two Groups Looking As In Front End And Back End. Here In We Will Be Taking Only Back End Part Of Web Development And That Too Specifically We Will Be Taking In The Consideration About The Node JS. Also We Will Here Be Talking About The Template Engines Which Are Meant As The Way How We Will Represent The Content That We Need To Send On The Screen Along With Some Dynamic Part That We Will Be Linking About The Node JS. So Here We Will Be Taking The Various Things That Make Handlebars And Embedded JavaScript Templates Differ From Each Other And Then Make Them ToUse On Various Platforms And On Various Uses. So Let Us Begin!!!

Template Engines In JavaScript

What Is Template Engines?

What Is A Template Engine And Where It Is Used In Node JS? The Template Engine Is Used Basically With The Framework That Is Called As Express. When We Work With Express, We Need To Work With Static Code Files With Actual Values. Also, We Work With The Frontend Part Which We Use In The Task So As To Wok In The Dynamic Part Display Which Needs To Be Shown On Various Platforms. So At The Runtime The Variables That Are Used In The Templates Are Changed Into Actual Values. The Template Engines Convert The Template Files Into HTML Files Which Are Sent To The Client.

There Are Various Template Engines That Are Displayed Or Being Used With Express Such As PUG, EJS, HANDLEBARS Or MUSTACHE. Here In We Will Be Discussing The EJS And HANDLEBARS (HBS). Now Let’s Discuss Them In the Coming Sections.

What Are Handlebars (HBS) Template Engine?

Handlebars Is A Simple Template Engine Language.

Handlebars

It Uses A Template And An Input Object To Generate HTML Or Other Text Formats. Handlebars Templates Look Like Regular Text With Embedded Handlebars Expressions. The Code And Use Basically Looks Like Given Below:

<div>{{firstname}} {{lastname}}</div>

To This Into Your Code Files, Use The Npm Site Mentioned Below To Download Into Your Main Root Directory And Look Into Your Package.JSON File For More Information About It.

handlebars

Now Let Us Work For Building A Common Simple Application In Node JS To Demonstrate Its Practical Usage In There In Our Application. Let Us Go To The Code Workplace.

Create A Node JS App By Following Basic Steps We Use Regularly. To Install express And HBS From npm, Use Below Mentioned Command And Write Into Your Terminal.

npm i express hbs --save

Below You Can See The Attached Source File app.js Where We Have Written All Our Code Regarding the Back End. Here I Have Attached The Styling And And Template Files To Show The Code. I Have Also Attached The Folder Structure Of Our Demo Application.

Folder Structure Of Demo Application

Now Below Given File Is The app.js In src Folder Mentioned Below.

Also, Below Mentioned Files Are Of views Directory Which Account Of The Templates That Will Be Displayed On The Browser Screen.

Now Here Comes The Thing That How The Data From app.js Is Passed Dynamically From It And Then Taken Into The Home. hbs And About. hbs In The Format Of Two Parentheses Surrounded Around The Variable “title”. It Makes The Code Look Simple Like As In Simple HTML Code. Same Code Title Variable Is Passed Onto All Of The Pages Or Templates That Will Be Shown On Browser. Below Given Is The CSS File Which Styles The Page.

Below Attached Is The Demo Video, Which Explains All The Features Of The Application We Designed.

Handlebars. JS Is An Extension To The Mustache Templating Language Created By Chris Wanstrath. Handlebars. JS And Mustache Are Both Logicless Templating Languages That Keep The View And The Code Separated Like We All Know They Should Be. Handlebars Have More Coverage And Adoption On GitHub With 14.6K Stars And 1.87K Forks. Also, Handlebars. JS Has A Broader Approval, Being Mentioned In 643 Company Stacks & 175 Developers Stacks.

Advantages Of Using Handlebars

1. Handlebars Provide The Power Necessary To Let You Build Semantic Templates Effectively With No Frustration.
2. Handlebars Compile Templates Into JavaScript Functions. This All Makes It To Execute Very Fast About The Templates That Are Used In Node JS With Collaboration Of Express JS.
3. Handlebars Look Very Comprehensive In Nature And We Can Use Variables Very Easily And Use The Partials Or The Files We Want To Use The Code From Those Files Which Needs To Be Included In The Given Files.
4. Simple Use Includes Just The {{ }} Format In The Express Expression That Needs To Be Used In It.

Now Let Us Discuss The Embedded JavaScript Templating Engine.

What Is Embedded JavaScript (EJS) Template Engine?

EJS Is A Simple Templating Language That Lets You Generate HTML Markup With Plain JavaScript.

EJS

It Uses A Template And An Input Object To Generate HTML Or Other Text Formats. EJS Templates Look Like Regular Text With No Use Of Code Flow. The Code And Use Basically Looks Like Given Below:

<div><%= firstname %></div>

To This Into Your Code Files, Use The Npm Site Mentioned Below To Download Into Your Main Root Directory And Look Into Your Package.JSON File For More Information About It.

ejs

Now Let Us Work For Building A Common Simple Application In Node JS To Demonstrate Its Practical Usage In There In Our Application. Let Us Go To The Code Workplace.

Create A Node JS App By Following Basic Steps We Use Regularly. To Install express And EJS From npm, Use Below Mentioned Command And Write Into Your Terminal.

npm i express ejs --save

Below You Can See The Attached Source File app.js Where We Have Written All Our Code Regarding the Back End. Here I Have Attached The Styling And And Template Files To Show The Code. I Have Also Attached The Folder Structure Of Our Demo Application.

Folder Structure Of Application

Now Below Given File Is The app.js In src Folder Mentioned Below.

Now You Can Look Above That We Have Included EJS As A Template Engine. Also, Below Mentioned Files Are Of views Directory Which Account Of The Templates That Will Be Displayed On The Browser Screen.

Now Here Comes The Thing That How The Data From app.js Is Passed Dynamically From It And Then Taken Into The Home. ejs And About. ejs In The Format Of <%= %> Surrounded Around The Variable “title”. It Makes The Code Look As We Are Passing The Dynamic Code As A Form Of Variable Value. Same Code Title Variable Is Passed Onto All Of The Pages Or Templates That Will Be Shown On Browser.

Below Given Is The CSS File Which Styles The Page.

EJS Is A Templating Language Created For Use Regarding Express JS. EJS Is Mostly Useful Whenever You Have To Output HTML With A Lot Of JavaScript. EJS Has 3.64K GitHub stars and 413 GitHub Forks. EJS Has Listed In 7 Company Stacks And 4 Developer Stacks. By Seeing The Video Demo We Cannot Describe Or Differentiate Any Changes And Variations Among Themselves.

EJS Also Has Certain Advantages Of Its Use. Let Us See What Are They.

Advantages Of Using EJS

1. EJS Was So Similar To HTML So I Found It Easy.
2. EJS Uses All The JS Jargon And Logic, So If You Are Proficient In JS, You Can Use EJS Right Away.
3. EJS Is Way Faster Than Jade And Handlebars.
4. EJS Has A Really Smart Error Handling Mechanism Built Right Into It. It Points Out To You, The Line Numbers On Which An Error Has Occurred So That You Don’t End Up Looking Through The Whole Template File Wasting Your Time In Searching For Bugs.
5. Simple Template Tags: <%= %>

So That Was All From My Side In This Technical Blog Where We Talked About The Use Of What Is Template Engine And Also Discussed About Two Of The Most Famous Express Template Engines HBS And EJS Which Has Transformed The Web Development In Few Years. Here I Have Discussed And Included All Of The Aspects That Needed To Be Included And Needed To Be Discussed.

I Am ARYAN GARG, A Third Year Student Of Information Technology And Pursuing My B.E/B.Tech From Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Institute Of Technology, Jalandhar, Punjab, India.

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