Express middleware to create a dynamic HTML page using metalsmith.

metalsmith_express_dynamic_page.js

'use strict';

var metalsmith = require('metalsmith');
var layouts = require('metalsmith-layouts');
var fs = require('fs');
var lorem = fs.readFileSync('./lorem.txt', 'utf8');

var n = 0;

// generates a single page
function generate(files, metalsmith, callback) {
  n++;
  files['index.html'] = {
    title: 'Item ' + n,
    path: 'index.html',
    contents: new Buffer('<h1>Item ' + n + '</h1><pre>' + lorem + '</pre>')
  };
  callback();
}

module.exports = function () {
  // prepare a metalsmith instance
  var ms = metalsmith(__dirname)
    .source('./src')
    .destination('./build')
    .use(generate)
    .use(layouts({
      directory: './layouts',
      default: 'page.html',
      engine: 'ejs'
    }));

  return function (req, res, next) {
    ms.run({}, function (err, files) {
      if (err) {
        next(err);
        return;
      }

      res
        .type('html')
        .end(files['index.html'].contents.toString(), 'utf8');
    });
  };
};