hb-interpolate-helpers

Interpolate a json file through a Handlebars template file to stdout.

Contents

• About
• Usage
• Notes
• Handlebars Helpers File
  • Further Information on Handlebars Helpers and Node.js Modules
• References

About

hb-interpolate-helpers (based on hb-interpolate) is a very simple command line tool that reads a .json file and a Handlebars template file, and then writes the implied interpolation to stdout. This project was forked from hb-interpolate, and adds the ability to pass in an optional Handlebars helpers file.

Usage

$ hb-interpolate-helpers --help

  Usage: hb-interpolate-helpers [options]

  Options:

    -f, --file             Handlebars helpers file
    -h, --help             Output usage information
    -j, --json [path]      JSON file with input data
    -t, --template [path]  Handlebars template to interpolate
    -n, --noEscape         Don't do HTML escaping

If the JSON file is a package.json, read-package-json is used to read the file.
Note that read-package-json normalizes some fields.
  `--json [path]` and `--tempate [path]` are REQUIRED.

Notes

• The --json [path] and --template [path] arguments are required.
• If the basename of the json path is package.json, hb-interpolate-helpers uses the node package read-package-json to read the file, which normalizes some fields, in particular all people fields. Any other JSON file is returned directly as read.
• The --noEscape option may be used to turn off Handlebars HTML escaping.
• The --file option may be used to add in a Handlebars helpers file.

Handlebars Helpers File

The optional Handlebars helpers file enables you to add your own customized helpers that enable you to add more complex logic to Handlebars template processing. Here's how to create a Handlebars Helpers file (written in JavaScript) to work with hb-interpolate-helpers:

• Create helper functions. There's no need to export these functions - just keep them internal.
• Create and export method called registerHelpers() that takes a Handlebars object as a parameter.
  • Use the module exports mechanism from Node.js.
  • Register all your helpers with the Handlebars.registerHelper() method. You can register each helper by name or with a single object.
  • hb-interpolate-helpers has already initialized the Handlebars object, so you only need to call registerHelpers(). Also, there's no need to do a require() on Handlebars or setup a Node.js project with package.json.

Further Information on Handlebars Helpers and Node.js Modules

Please see the following for more information:

• Here's a sample Handlebars helpers file that follows the above instructions and integrates with hb-interpolate-helpers - testHelpers.js.
  • This project's test.sh script shows an example of how to use the helpers file.
• For more information on how registerHelpers() works, please see the Handlebars API Reference.
• The registerHelpers() method enables the developer to extend this utility. This follows the principle of Inversion of Control.
• To learn more about Node.js modules, please see SitePoint's excellent article on Understanding module.exports and exports in Node.js.

References

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