Handlebars precompilation via nodejs fails on Cloud9

Question

I am using handlebars template precompiler for express (https://github.com/diffsky/hbsc) to precompile my templates in nodejs.

It works great when i do it localy but when i try it in cloud9 ide (https://c9.io) it works the first time and then i only get exceptions.

This is my configuration from app.js

var hbsc = require('hbsc');
    hbsc.compile({
      dir: __dirname + '/views/public',
      outfile: __dirname + '/public/javascripts/compiled-templates.js',
      extensions: ['hbs', 'handlebars']
    });

This is my simple template

<b>All users</b>

<div>
    {{#each this}}
    <li>{{email}}</li>
    {{/each}}
</div>

And this is the exception that i am getting

/var/lib/stickshift/5168822b4382ec505c0000ba/app-root/data/471704/views/public/listusers.handlebars:1
(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { <b>All users</b>
                                  ^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token <
    at Module._compile (module.js:437:25)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:467:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:492:10)
    at process.startup.processNextTick.process._tickCallback (node.js:244:9)

If i remove the compiled template file and try again after a while, it succeeds (sometimes) but if i change a template the error returns.

Again, this code works perfectly when run localy so it looks like that cloud9 handles something differently.

This error really puzzels me since I find no logic in it. Can anybody help me with any insights on where to begin looking to fix this problem?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 20 '13 at 16:27

It was a conflict between the handlebars templates for the server and the ones on the client. I was using express3-handlebars to compile templates for the server and the error came from that compiler, not the client-based one.

My solution was to rename the client templates to .html instead. This way the two compilers seems to get along.

I still can't explain why I never got the same error on my local nodejs installation though.

Handlebars precompilation via nodejs fails on Cloud9

1 Answers1