Question

What is the difference between:

Mustache.compile() ,
Mustache.parse(), and
Mustache.render()

in the new mustache.js version 0.5.0, and perhaps for bonus points you could tell us what the difference between parsing and compiling is in general.

Answer 1

EDIT

With an API change introduced in version 0.8.0, the compile() method has been integrated into parse(). Manually compiling the templates is no longer required.

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Mustache.parse()

Syntactically parses the template and creates a JavaScript function body (a string) from it. During that process it notifies of any syntax errors encountered in the template.

Mustache.compile()

Uses the function body returned from a successful parse() to create an actual JavaScript function. The created function is placed in a cache for re-use.

Mustache.render()

Takes the appropriate function for a given template (the one that was created by compile()) and applies it to actual data. This creates the result meant to be shown on screen.