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JavaScript Express Basics Using Templates with Express Using Pug in Your Express App

Posted by JASON LEE
JASON LEE
17,351 Points

Pug template configuration, how does express know where to look ?

From video https://teamtreehouse.com/library/using-pug-in-your-express-app

app.set('view engine', 'pug');
...
res.render('index')

Based on the app.set('view engine', 'pug') command, how does express know to look into this specific folder views/index.pug ?

And how come when I try to do it manually, res.render('./views/index.pug') or res.render('./views/index'), it doesn't work?

1 Answer

Rohald van Merode
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STAFF
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Rohald van Merode
Treehouse Staff
Rohald van Merode
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Rohald van Merode
Treehouse Staff

Hi JASON LEE 👋

When you're setting a view engine with that first line in your code block by default Express will start looking for pug files in your /views directory. Therefor you can omit the path to the file as well as the extension .pug in your render method.

Using the complete filepath should still be working though. If it doesn't you might want to check if you're using the right path. For example if you got those render methods in a separate directory like routes/index.js you'll want to change the path to jump up a directory before moving into the views folder like so: res.render('./../views/index.pug')

I hope this is helpful 🙂

JASON LEE
JASON LEE
17,351 Points

I think i figured out why the separate directory is not working. It has to reference the directory RELATIVE to the views folder. So relative to the views folder it would be res.render('../views/index.pug') or res.render('./index.pug'). In the first example the ../ goes to the parent directory of the views folder and then back to the /views folder