Handlebars.js parse object instead of [Object object]

Question

I'm using Handlebars templates and JSON data is already represented in [Object object], how do I parse this data outside of the Handlebars? For example, I'm trying to populate a JavaScript variable on the page through a handlebars tag, but this doesn't work.

Any suggestions? Thank you!

EDIT:

To clarify, I'm using ExpressJS w/ Handlebars for templating. In my route, I have this:

var user = {}
user = {'id' : 123, 'name' : 'First Name'}

res.render('index', {user : user});

Then in my index.hbs template, I now have a {{user}} object. I can use {{#each}} to iterate through the object just fine. However, I'm also using Backbonejs and I want to pass this data to a View, such as this:

myView = new myView({user : {{user}});

The problem, is that {{user}} simply shows [Object object] in the source if I put it in console.log I get an error, 'Unexpected Identifier'.

Answer 1

When outputting {{user}}, Handlebars will first retrieve the user's .toString() value. For plain Objects, the default result of this is the "[object Object]" you're seeing.

To get something more useful, you'll either want to display a specific property of the object:

{{user.id}}
{{user.name}}

Or, you can use/define a helper to format the object differently:

Handlebars.registerHelper('json', function(context) {
    return JSON.stringify(context);
});

myView = new myView({
    user : {{{json user}}} // note triple brackets to disable HTML encoding
});

Answer 2

You can simple stringify the JSON:

var user = {}
user = {'id' : 123, 'name' : 'First Name'};
// for print
user.stringify = JSON.stringify(user);

Then in template print by:

{{{user.stringify}}};

Answer 3

I'm using server-side templating in node-js, but this may apply client-side as well. I register Jonathan's json helper in node. In my handler, I add context (such as addressBook) via res.locals. Then I can store the context variable client-side as follows:

<script>
  {{#if addressBook}}
  console.log("addressBook:", {{{json addressBook}}});
  window.addressBook = {{{json addressBook}}};
  {{/if}}
</script>

Note the triple curlies (as pointed out by Jim Liu).

Answer 4

You are trying to pass templating syntax {{ }} inside a JSON object which is not valid.

You may need to do this instead:

myView = new myView({ user : user });