Question

I’m trying to get if/else interpolate working with Underscore.js and HAML, but to no avail. I’m already changing the interpolate setting in Underscore.js to the following:

_.templateSettings = {
  interpolate : /\{\{([\s\S]+?)\}\}/g
};

This works nicely when I’m trying to interpolate a value inside a notation like {{ value }}. However, I’m failing to make if/else statements work. I have the following:

{{ if (true) { }}
  {{ val }}
{{ } }}

I get an Javascript exception “Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token if “. Help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Underscore templates use three different sets of delimiters:

1. evaluate: This is for bits of JavaScript, <% ... %> by default.
2. interpolate: This is for dumping the contents of a variable, <%= ... %> by default.
3. escape: As interpolate but also escapes HTML, <%- ... %> by default.

These mostly match ERB syntax. You’re trying to use the interpolation syntax with JavaScript that isn’t an expression:

{{ if(true) { }}

but that won’t work as an if isn’t an expression in JavaScript.

You probably want to override all three patterns:

_.templateSettings = {
  evaluate    : /\{\{([\s\S]+?)\}\}/g,
  interpolate : /\{\{=([\s\S]+?)\}\}/g,
  escape      : /\{\{-([\s\S]+?)\}\}/g
};

and then say things like this:

{{ if (true) { }}
  {{= val }}
{{ } }}

If you can limit your templates to simple substitutions then you could just use interpolate and {{expr}} in your templates.