Print JSON data structures as a value using CLI

[metmajer]

Hi, and thanks for maintaining this great project! I am trying to find a way to present random JSON data structures in an HTML file that is rendered using the mustache CLI.

Given the following example:

["a", "b"]

...I'd like to see the following ]results:

["a", "b"]

...but get:

[a b]

in the resulting document. Any ideas on how to achieve this goal? Thanks!

[cbroglie]

Hi @metmajer, to make sure I understand the ask, can you please share a small example program that demonstrates the issue?

[metmajer]

Hi @cbroglie, and thanks for your reponse. Sure, here's a reproducible example:

File: data.js

{
    "data": {
        "a": [],
        "b": ["foo", "bar"],
        "c": "baz"
    }
}

File: index.html.tmpl

<h1>Data</h1>

<p>
{{{ data }}}
</p>

Finally, mustache data.js index.html.tmpl yields:

<h1>Data</h1>

<p>
map[a:[] b:[foo bar] c:baz]
</p>

Expected:

<h1>Data</h1>

<p>
{ "a": [], "b", ["foo", "bar"], "c": "baz" }
</p>

Obviously, {{ data }} yields a string representation of the internal Golang data structure. But this not expected, if the input data is JSON. I am using v1.0.1.

[cbroglie]

AFAIK there is nothing in the mustache spec that says it should automatically output JSON here. If you want to output JSON, then you should call json.Marshal on the data before passing it to mustache.

[metmajer]

Agreed, the spec doesn't say so. But as I stated in the title, I am using the CLI, and not a controller implementation for the moment.

If you're accepting JSON as a data input format, as a user I'd expect you to support this in the output as well -- at least when I want to dump a nested data structure.

[cbroglie]

No, mustache implementations output the default string representation of the given data, which varies by language (e.g. the JS version will output [object Object]). It's your job to fit the template to the data.