Mustache

Inspired by ctemplate and et, Mustache is a
framework-agnostic way to render logic-free views.

As ctemplates says, “It emphasizes separating logic from presentation:
it is impossible to embed application logic in this template language.”

For a list of implementations (other than Ruby) and tips, see
.

Overview

Think of Mustache as a replacement for your views. Instead of views
consisting of ERB or HAML with random helpers and arbitrary logic,
your views are broken into two parts: a Ruby class and an HTML
template.

We call the Ruby class the “view” and the HTML template the
“template.”

All your logic, decisions, and code is contained in your view. All
your markup is contained in your template. The template does nothing
but reference methods in your view.

This strict separation makes it easier to write clean templates,
easier to test your views, and more fun to work on your app’s front end.

Why?

I like writing Ruby. I like writing HTML. I like writing JavaScript.

I don’t like writing ERB, Haml, Liquid, Django Templates, putting Ruby
in my HTML, or putting JavaScript in my HTML.

Usage

Quick example:

>> require ‘mustache’
=> true
>> Mustache.render(“Hello {{planet}}”, :planet => “World!”)
=> “Hello World!”

We’ve got an examples folder but here’s the canonical one:

class Simple < Mustache
def name
“Chris”
end

def value
10_000
end

def taxed_value
value * 0.6
end

def in_ca
true
end
end

We simply create a normal Ruby class and define methods. Some methods
reference others, some return values, some return only booleans.

Now let’s write the template:

Hello {{name}}
You have just won {{value}} dollars!
{{#in_ca}}
Well, {{taxed_value}} dollars, after taxes.
{{/in_ca}}

This template references our view methods. To bring it all together,
here’s the code to render actual HTML;

Simple.render

Which returns the following:

Hello Chris
You have just won 10000 dollars!
Well, 6000.0 dollars, after taxes.

Simple.

Tag Types

For a language-agnostic overview of Mustache’s template syntax, see
the mustache(5) manpage or
.

Escaping

Mustache does escape all values when using the standard double
Mustache syntax. Characters which will be escaped: & \ " < >. To
disable escaping, simply use tripple mustaches like
{{{unescaped_variable}}}.

Example: Using {{variable}} inside a template for 5 > 2 will
result in 5 > 2, where as the usage of {{{variable}}} will
result in 5 > 2.

Dict-Style Views

ctemplate and friends want you to hand a dictionary to the template
processor. Mustache supports a similar concept. Feel free to mix the
class-based and this more procedural style at your leisure.

Given this template (winner.mustache):

Hello {{name}}
You have just won {{value}} bucks!

We can fill in the values at will:

view = Winner.new
view[:name] = ‘George’
view[:value] = 100
view.render

Which returns:

Hello George
You have just won 100 bucks!

We can re-use the same object, too:

view[:name] = ‘Tony’
view.render
Hello Tony
You have just won 100 bucks!

Templates

A word on templates. By default, a view will try to find its template
on disk by searching for an HTML file in the current directory that
follows the classic Ruby naming convention.

TemplatePartial => ./template_partial.mustache

You can set the search path using Mustache.template_path. It can be set on a
class by class basis:

class Simple < Mustache
self.template_path = File.dirname(FILE)
… etc …
end

Now Simple will look for simple.mustache in the directory it resides
in, no matter the cwd.

If you want to just change what template is used you can set
Mustache.template_file directly:

Simple.template_file = ‘./blah.mustache’

Mustache also allows you to define the extension it’ll use.

Simple.template_extension = ‘xml’

Given all other defaults, the above line will cause Mustache to look
for ‘./blah.xml’

Feel free to set the template directly:

Simple.template = ‘Hi {{person}}!’

Or set a different template for a single instance:

Simple.new.template = ‘Hi {{person}}!’

Whatever works.

Views

Mustache supports a bit of magic when it comes to views. If you’re
authoring a plugin or extension for a web framework (Sinatra, Rails,
etc), check out the view_namespace and view_path settings on the
Mustache class. They will surely provide needed assistance.

Helpers

What about global helpers? Maybe you have a nifty gravatar function
you want to use in all your views? No problem.

This is just Ruby, after all.

module ViewHelpers
def gravatar
gravatar_id = Digest::MD5.hexdigest(self[:email].to_s.strip.downcase)
gravatar_for_id(gravatar_id)
end

def gravatar_for_id(gid, size = 30)
“#{gravatar_host}/avatar/#{gid}?s=#{size}”
end

def gravatar_host
@ssl ? ‘https://secure.gravatar.com’ : ’http://www.gravatar.com’
end
end

Then just include it:

class Simple < Mustache
include ViewHelpers

def name
“Chris”
end

def value
10_000
end

def taxed_value
value * 0.6
end

def in_ca
true
end

def users
User.all
end
end

Great, but what about that @ssl ivar in gravatar_host? There are
many ways we can go about setting it.

Here’s on example which illustrates a key feature of Mustache: you
are free to use the initialize method just as you would in any
normal class.

class Simple < Mustache
include ViewHelpers

def initialize(ssl = false)
@ssl = ssl
end

… etc …
end

Now:

Simple.new(request.ssl?).render

Finally, our template might look like this:

{{# users}}

• {{ login }}

{{/ users}}

Sinatra

Mustache ships with Sinatra integration. Please see
lib/mustache/sinatra.rb or

for complete documentation.

An example Sinatra application is also provided:

If you are upgrading to Sinatra 1.0 and Mustache 0.9.0+ from Mustache
0.7.0 or lower, the settings have changed. But not that much.

See this diff for what you need to
do. Basically, things are named properly now and all should be
contained in a hash set using set :mustache, hash.

Rack::Bug

Mustache also ships with a Rack::Bug panel. In your config.ru add
the following code:

require ‘rack/bug/panels/mustache_panel’
use Rack::Bug::MustachePanel

Using Rails? Add this to your initializer or environment file:

require ‘rack/bug/panels/mustache_panel’
config.middleware.use “Rack::Bug::MustachePanel”

Vim

Thanks to Juvenn Woo for mustache.vim. It
is included under the contrib/ directory.

See for installation instructions.

Emacs

mustache-mode.el is included under the contrib/ directory for any
Emacs users. Based on Google’s tpl-mode for ctemplates, it adds
support for Mustache’s more lenient tag values and includes a few
commands for your editing pleasure.

See for installation instructions.

TextMate

Mustache.tmbundle

See for installation instructions.

Command Line

See mustache(1) man page or

for command line docs.

Installation

RubyGems

$ gem install mustache

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tom Preston-Werner for showing
me ctemplate and Leah Culver for the name “Mustache.”

Special thanks to Magnus Holm for all his
awesome work on Mustache’s parser.

Contributing

Once you’ve made your great commits:

1. Fork Mustache
2. Create a topic branch - git checkout -b my_branch
3. Push to your branch - git push origin my_branch
4. Create an Issue with a link to your branch
5. That’s it!

You might want to checkout Resque’s Contributing wiki page for information
on coding standards, new features, etc.

Mailing List

To join the list simply send an email to . This
will subscribe you and send you information about your subscription,
including unsubscribe information.

The archive can be found at .

Meta

• Code: git clone git://github.com/defunkt/mustache.git
• Home:
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• List:
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You can also find us in #{ on irc.freenode.net.