Jade support for jade.compile() in addition to jade.render()

[kangas]

The current Jade compiler always calls jade.render to produce text/html.

I want to enhance the compiler so it is also able to return application/javascript (via jade.compile) when a javascript file calls require('file.jade').

Any suggestions on how to approach this?

Questions:

• Is it possible for one compiler with one input mime type produce two output mime types? And write two distinct cache entries?
• If so, how may a compiler detect whether require-hook or protocol-hook was invoked for a given file?

[anaisbetts]

Is it possible for one compiler with one input mime type produce two output mime types? And write two distinct cache entries?

Not at the moment, though it's not impossible.

If so, how may a compiler detect whether require-hook or protocol-hook was invoked for a given file?

It can't unfortunately, we'd have to add that. Right now you can get away with returning JS for compileSync and HTML for compile, but that's mostly happenstance.

As an aside, what does jade.compile actually return? JS code that will render a Jade template?

[durran]

jade.compile returns JS function that renders the template.

[anaisbetts]

Hm, I'm not sure that will work, because node.js's module framework expects that require.extensions returns some kind of string - if you return an already instantiated Function it'll blow up

[kangas]

Paul, thanks for the feedback. Durran is correct, jade.compile returns a JS function which, when invoked, renders within a context. It's described here: http://jade-lang.com/api/

We are presently working around this by invoking jade.compile directly as needed, but this implies that we'll also ship Jade plus its dependencies in our release build. I'd like to solve this in due time.

[anaisbetts]

@kangas I think we can make this work but it'll be ugly, we can take the Function returned by Jade and call toString on it, turning it back into JS source 😢