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JavaScript

Posted by Daniel Oropeza
Daniel Oropeza
4,432 Points

Javascript users! What does this syntax entail?

What does the less than , percent sign, equals sign mean?

watch: { files: ['<%= jshint.files %>'], tasks: ['jshint', 'qunit'] }

2 Answers

John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points
John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points

It's actually ERB (embedded ruby), which you'll find in a lot of task runners like Grunt. You can swap it out for whatever you want though. That being said, use Gulp for JS automation.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
243,658 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
243,658 Points

Those are part of an ASP.NET inline expression, which is not JavaScript. It is evaluated in the server while the page is being constructed, and will never be seen by the client. Instead, the entire expression (between the angles) is replaced by the value that jshint.files contains in the server.

These expressions are strictly for Microsoft servers and are not portable. For more info see this MS Support page.

Daniel Oropeza
Daniel Oropeza
4,432 Points

I see, thank you. The code is from an example gruntfile at http://gruntjs.com/sample-gruntfile

I don't know why the author decided to use an ASP.NET expression for signaling the path to a file. It makes understanding the gruntfile code more difficult for beginners like myself. Anyways thanks again!