Difference between compile(), parse(), and render() in mustache.js

Question

What is the difference between:

Mustache.compile() , Mustache.parse(), and Mustache.render()

in the new mustache.js version 0.5.0, and perhaps for bonus points you could tell us what the difference between parsing and compiling is in general.

Answer 1

EDIT

With an API change introduced in version 0.8.0, the compile() method has been integrated into parse(). Manually compiling the templates is no longer required.

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Mustache.parse()

Syntactically parses the template and creates a JavaScript function body (a string) from it. During that process it notifies of any syntax errors encountered in the template.

Mustache.compile()

Uses the function body returned from a successful parse() to create an actual JavaScript function. The created function is placed in a cache for re-use.

Mustache.render()

Takes the appropriate function for a given template (the one that was created by compile()) and applies it to actual data. This creates the result meant to be shown on screen.

Answer 2

Just a tip Mustache.parse(template) is optional and speeds up future uses of template. This is useful when you want to reuse your template with a set of (large) data. If this is not the case a call to the Mustache.render(), which generates the final result, is enough.

Answer 3

A little extra: If you working with custom delimiters (instead of {{ and }}), you can use Mustache.parse before calling the Mustache.render with the custom delimiters as a parameter.

Example:

var template = "<h1>Hello {{$name$}}</h1>"
var customTags = [ '{{$', '$}}' ];
Mustache.parse(template, cutomTags);
var result = Mustache.render(template, { name: "John" };
console.log(result);

Will result In:

Hello John