Compile a handlebars template without calling res.render On node typically use handlebars to render our webpage, but from time to time it's useful to compile a template from our views directory on the server as a string.

example.js

var express = require('express');
var fs = require('fs');
var hbs = require('hbs');

var app = module.exports = express.createServer();

app.configure(function(){
  app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
  //app.set('view engine', 'jade');
  app.set('view engine', 'hbs');
  app.use(app.router);
  app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
});


//let's read our layout straight from the views dir
var markup = fs.readFileSync("views/layout.hbs", "utf8");

//compile the template
var template = hbs.compile(markup);

//pass your object to the template fn()
console.log(template({}));

process.exit();