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Version: 3.x.x

Template Syntax

Eta's syntax will be familiar if you've ever used EJS. You'll get the hang of it in no time!

Basic Syntax​

The data you pass in is available in the it variable.

To output data, use the <%= opening tag.

Hi <%= it.name %>

By default, Eta will automatically XML-escape the data you output. To allow raw HTML, use the <%~ opening tag.

Hi <%~ it.contentContainingHTML %>

To evaluate JavaScript, use the <% opening tag.

<% let myVar = 3 %>

Comments are just like regular JavaScript multiline comments!

<% /* this is a comment */ %>

Partials and Layouts​

Partials are just like regular templates, except they are rendered inside other templates.

To render a partial, use the <%~ opening tag + the include() function.

<%~ include("./path-to-partial") %>
<% /* we can also pass in data that will be merged with `it` and passed to the partial */ %>
<%~ include("./path-to-partial", { option: true }) %>

To render an async partial, use the <%~ opening tag + the includeAsync() function.

<%~ await includeAsync("./path-to-partial") %>

A template file can only have one parent layout (though layouts themselves can have parents). To set the parent layout, use the layout() function.

<% layout("./path-to-layout") %>

Name Resolution of Partials and Layouts​

If you're running Eta in Node.js or Deno, Eta will automatically try to resolve partials and layouts from inside the filesystem. Ex. <%~ include("/header.eta") %> will look for a file called header.eta in the views directory of your project.

But what if you want to include a partial/layout that doesn't exist on the filesystem? Maybe you programatically defined it as a string or loaded it from the internet. There's a solution for that. If you name your template starting with an @ symbol, Eta will know to look in the internal template storage rather than on the filesystem.

<%~ include("@header") %>

Whitespace Control​

Note: a "delimiter" means the opening or closing tag.

Opening delimiters can be followed with - or _, and closing delimiters can be prefixed with - or _

_ at the beginning of a tag will trim all whitespace before it, and _ at the end of a tag will trim all whitespace after it.

- at the beginning of a tag will trim 1 newline before it, and - at the end of a tag will trim 1 newline after it.

Hi
<%- = it.myname %>
<% /* %The newline after "Hi" will be stripped */ %>