How can I get Express to output nicely formatted HTML?
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 }).
To "pretty-format" html output in Jade/Express:
app.set('view options', { pretty: true });
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 -- theability to actually debug the HTML my views produce -- it's just fine.