How to render the HAML template with haml.js in Express

Question

I need to render HAML templates in my Node.js/Express application. I tried to configure haml.js as views renderer:

haml = require('hamljs')
...
app.set('view engine', 'hamljs')
app.engine('.haml', haml.render)

And the code in my GET / handeler:

options =
    layout: "layout.haml"
    locals:
        message: 'world'
res.render('index.haml',options)

But application doesn't receive any data.

The is another example in haml.js documentation :

app.engine('.haml', require('hamljs').renderFile);

But there is no such function.

Answer 1

Setting up the haml templating engine did not work for me either. And as there are a few outdated pages out there on that topic, which could be a bit confusing, here is the 'manual way' which worked for me:

var haml = require('hamljs');
var fs = require('fs');
var express = require('express');
var app = express();

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
  var hamlView = fs.readFileSync('views/home.haml', 'utf8');
  res.end( haml.render(hamlView, {locals: {key: 'value'}) );
});

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);