Handlebars.js parse object instead of [Object object]
I'm using Handlebars templates and JSON data is already represented in [Object object], how do I parse this data outside of the Handlebars? For example, I'm trying to populate a JavaScript variable on the page through a handlebars tag, but this doesn't work.
Any suggestions? Thank you!
EDIT:
To clarify, I'm using ExpressJS w/ Handlebars for templating. In my route, I have this:
var user = {}
user = {'id' : 123, 'name' : 'First Name'}
res.render('index', {user : user});
Then in my index.hbs template, I now have a {{user}} object. I can use {{#each}} to iterate through the object just fine. However, I'm also using Backbonejs and I want to pass this data to a View, such as this:
myView = new myView({user : {{user}});
The problem, is that {{user}} simply shows [Object object] in the source if I put it in console.log I get an error, 'Unexpected Identifier'.
Answers:
When outputting {{user}}, Handlebars will first retrieve the user's .toString() value. For plain Objects, the default result of this is the "[object Object]" you're seeing.
To get something more useful, you'll either want to display a specific property of the object:
{{user.id}}
{{user.name}}
Or, you can use/define a helper to format the object differently:
Handlebars.registerHelper('json', function(context) {
return JSON.stringify(context);
});
myView = new myView({
user : {{{json user}}} // note triple brackets to disable HTML encoding
});
You can simple stringify the JSON:
var user = {}
user = {'id' : 123, 'name' : 'First Name'};
// for print
user.stringify = JSON.stringify(user);
Then in template print by:
{{{user.stringify}}};
I'm using server-side templating in node-js, but this may apply client-side as well. I register Jonathan's json helper in node. In my handler, I add context (such as addressBook) via res.locals. Then I can store the context variable client-side as follows:
<script>
{{#if addressBook}}
console.log("addressBook:", {{{json addressBook}}});
window.addressBook = {{{json addressBook}}};
{{/if}}
</script>
Note the triple curlies (as pointed out by Jim Liu).
You are trying to pass templating syntax {{ }} inside a JSON object which is not valid.
You may need to do this instead:
myView = new myView({ user : user });
If you want more control over the output formatting you can write your own helper. This one has a recursive function to traverse nested objects.
Handlebars.registerHelper('objToList', function(context) {
function toList(obj, indent) {
var res=""
for (var k in obj) {
if (obj[k] instanceof Object) {
res=res+k+"\n"+toList(obj[k], (" " + indent)) ;
}
else{
res=res+indent+k+" : "+obj[k]+"\n";
}
}
return res;
}
return toList(context,"");
});
We used handlebars for email templates and this proved useful for a user like the following
{
"user": {
"id": 123,
"name": "First Name",
"account": {
"bank": "Wells Fargo",
"sort code": " 123-456"
}
}
}