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Jhey Tompkins
Jhey Tompkins

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Pug in 5 minutes

#webdev #beginners #html #javascript

What is it?

A template engine for node and browser environments.

It uses an indent sensitive syntax allowing you to write clean markup with less code ๐Ÿ˜Ž

For those in camp TL;DR, scroll down for demos! ๐Ÿ˜Ž

Jumping in ๐Ÿ‘Ÿ

An element follows this structure

input#check.checkbox(checked="true")
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  • Text at the start of a line with no special character prefix is treated as a tag. If no tag is defined, pug defaults to div
  • Define classes prefixed with .
  • Define an id prefixed with #
  • Define attributes optionally comma-separated within the brackets 
<input class="checkbox" id="check" checked="true" />
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If we wanted a div with the class flower, we only need

.flower
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You can write comments with //(included in output) and //-(not included in output).

Nesting content

To nest an element, indent it!

.parent
  .child
    .grandchild
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<div class="parent">
    <div class="child">
        <div class="grandchild"></div>
    </div>
</div>
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Think of the keystroke savings! ๐Ÿ™

If you need to include plain text within an element, suffix with . ๐Ÿ‘

script.
  if (isAwesome(pug))
    return "Hell yeah!"
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Inheritance via extends and blocks

Pug supports template inheritance via extends and blocks. The common example is a layout extension.

//- layout.pug
html
  head
    title Awesome site
  body
    block content
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//- home.pug
extends layout.pug
block content
  h1 Welcome to my awesome site!
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Giving us

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Awesome site</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Welcome to an awesome site!</h1>
  </body>
</html>
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Includes

To stop our pug files from growing out of control, we can split them into separate files and include them.

Consider a layout where we "include" a menu section of markup.

//- layout.pug
html
  head
    title Some awesome site!
  body
    include menu.pug
    main
      block content
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//- menu.pug
nav
  ul
    li
      a(href="/") Home
    li
      a(href="/about") About
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<html>
  <head>
    <title>Some awesome site!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <nav>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="/about">About</a></li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
    <main></main>
  </body>
</html>
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Inline code ๐Ÿค“

You can use valid JavaScript within Pug templates. There are various ways to do this.

  • Unbuffered - Code prefixed with - is not included in the output
  • Buffered - Code prefixed with = is evaluated and output is included 
- const random = Math.floor(Math.random() * 10)
.number= `Random number is ${random}`
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<div class="number">Random number is 4</div>
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This opens up a bunch of possibilities we'll explore in our example! ๐Ÿ˜Ž

Interpolation

Need to interpolate a variable? There are two ways. You could use Pugs interpolation operator #{}. But, if you're using inline code, you could also use unbuffered code ๐Ÿ˜Ž

- const name = 'Geoff'
.greeting Hey #{name}!
.greeting= `Hey ${name}!`
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<div class="greeting">Hey Geoff!</div>
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Conditionals

Pug provides conditional operators that feel familiar to those we use elsewhere. Alternatively, we could use Unbuffered code to achieve the same result ๐Ÿ˜Ž

- const balance = 100
if balance >= 50
  span Nice!
else if balance >= 0
  span Cool
else
  span Uh oh!
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<span>Nice!</span>
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Iteration

Two main operators for iteration in Pug are each and while.

ul.week
  each day in ['Sun', 'Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat']
    li.week__day= day.toUpperCase()
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<ul class="week">
  <li class="week__day">SUN</li>
  <li class="week__day">MON</li>
  <li class="week__day">TUE</li>
  <li class="week__day">WED</li>
  <li class="week__day">THU</li>
  <li class="week__day">FRI</li>
  <li class="week__day">SAT</li>
</ul>
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- let b = 0
while b < 5
  .balloon
  - b++
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<div class="balloon"></div>
<div class="balloon"></div>
<div class="balloon"></div>
<div class="balloon"></div>
<div class="balloon"></div>
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As with conditionals, we could use Unbuffered code to achieve the same results ๐Ÿ‘

Mixins

Mixins are a powerful feature of Pug. They're reusable blocks of Pug that can either be static, accept params, or take blocks.

We invoke a mixin with +.

When we find repeating patterns in our markup, it could be time for a mixin!

Here's a static mixin.

mixin socials
  li
    a(href='https://dev.to/jh3y') Check out some articles!
  li
    a(href='https://codepen.io/jh3y') Check out some code!

footer
  ul
    +socials
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<footer>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="https://dev.to/jh3y">Check out some articles!</a></li>
    <li><a href="https://codepen.io/jh3y">Check out some code!</a></li>
  </ul>
</footer>
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That's cool but mixins that accept params will be more useful ๐Ÿ’ช

mixin card(name, avatar = 'https://placehold.it/400x400')
  .card
    img.card__image(src= avatar)
    h2.card__title= name

+card('Geoff', 'https://some-image.com/geoff.png')
+card('Jack')
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<div class="card">
  <img class="card__image" src="https://some-image.com/geoff.png" />
  <h2 class="card__title">Geoff</h2>
</div>
<div class="card">
  <img class="card__image" src="https://placehold.it/400x400" />
  <h2 class="card__title">Jack</h2>
</div>
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Notice how we can also provide default values for those params! ๐Ÿค“

If you want a mixin but need different nested markup for certain cases, then a mixin block will work.

mixin card(name, avatar = 'https://placehold.it/400x400')
  .card
    img.card__image(src= avatar)
    h2.card__title= name
    if block
      block
+card('Stu', 'https://stu.com/avatar.png')
  .card__badge User of the month!
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<div class="card">
  <img class="card__image" src="https://stu.com/avatar.png" />
  <h2 class="card__title">Stu</h2>
  <div class="card__badge">User of the month!</div>
</div>
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Hot tip! ๐Ÿ”ฅ

You can use JavaScript template literals for inline styles to generate dynamic demos ๐Ÿ˜Ž

An example - Randomly generated flowers ๐ŸŒผ

Let's put some techniques into practice. Here's a styled up flower.

Quite a bit of pug there ๐Ÿ‘Ž

.flower
  .flower__petal.flower__petal--0
    div
    div
    div
    div
  .flower__petal.flower__petal--1
    div
    div
    div
    div
  .flower__petal.flower__petal--2
    div
    div
    div
    div
  .flower__petal.flower__petal--3
    div
    div
    div
    div    
  .flower__core
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Let's refactor that! ๐Ÿ˜Ž

mixin flower
  .flower
    - let p = 0
    while (p < 4)
      .flower__petal(class=`flower__petal--${p}`)
        - let s = 0
        while (s < 4)
          div
          - s++
      - p++
    .flower__core
+flower
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That's great! But we could take it further. Let's generate random inline CSS variables for our flower. We could define its position with a generated inline --x and --y ๐Ÿ˜Ž

Example markup generated with a random --x and --y ๐Ÿ‘

<div class="flower" style="--x: 1; --y: 85;">...</div>
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Once we start leveraging Pug and CSS together like this, it opens up a bunch of possibilities. Check this out!

We utilize a while loop and generate random characteristics to be passed into each flower element ๐Ÿค“

- let f = 0
while f < 50
  - const x = randomInRange(0, 100)
  - const y = randomInRange(0, 100)
  - const hue = randomInRange(0, 360)
  - const size = randomInRange(10, 50)
  - const rotation = randomInRange(0, 360)
  - const delay = f * 0.1
  +flower(x, y, hue, size, rotation, delay)
  - f++
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That's it!

In 5 minutes you now know enough Pug to be well on your way to speeding up your markup generation.

You can also leverage some of Pugs awesome features to speed things up, mitigate errors, and randomly generate demos! ๐Ÿ”ฅ

Have fun!

All the demos in this article are available in this CodePen collection.

As always, any questions, please feel free to leave a response or tweet me ๐Ÿฆ! And say "Hey!" anyway ๐Ÿ˜Ž

Top comments (19)

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marcusatlocalhost profile image
Marcus • • Edited

I love pug (since jade days) and especially the markdown filter is neat for simple content that might need some more complex html.

pugjs.org/language/filters.html

:markdown-it(linkify langPrefix='highlight-')
  # Markdown

  Markdown document with http://links.com and

  ` ` ` js
  var codeBlocks;
  ` ` `
script
  :coffee-script
    console.log 'This is coffee script'
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someone wrote an article about it here: dev.to/patarapolw/pug-with-markdow...

PS: I'm using the php pug port :D which is a bit weird, but works well.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins •

Yeah, me too! ๐Ÿ˜…

I've never really used filtering though. I'll definitely give it a look ๐Ÿ‘

I was unaware of some of the ports and packages that have come out. Yet to try out the React integration ๐Ÿ˜Ž

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jsn1nj4 profile image
Elliot Derhay •

Is the port weird or is using it in PHP weird?

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marcusatlocalhost profile image
Marcus •

It was weird that the php port comes with the full node package - in case node is available (if I remember right) and it's weird because the handling of variables was not 100% consistent. Sometimes you had to write $var['key'] - but maybe these problems are solved now, haven't installed it for quite some time.

But else, it rocks.

Thread Thread
 
jsn1nj4 profile image
Elliot Derhay • • Edited

Oh so it still requires Node to run and provides a $var array for variables? That is weird. ๐Ÿ˜•

Thread Thread
 
marcusatlocalhost profile image
Marcus •

No no, it doesn't require Node at all! The information I gave was probably old or misleading.
I know their goal was to make it 100% compatible with the Node version, so I'm sure everything in the Node version, works in the php version.
github.com/pug-php/pug

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jpkeisala profile image
Jukka-Pekka Keisala •

I have done one project with Pug but I went back to HTML because it did not improve my productivity at all. I don't buy saving keystrokes since IDE's have code completion on HTML. Instead with pug I get constant indentation problems and it was harder to read that colour coded HTML in the IDE.
Pug just did not sit on my tooling at all.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins •

Totally get that it's not for everyone ๐Ÿ‘

For me, I've not had a great experience of relying on IDEs for things like that ๐Ÿ˜… However, I imagine if I was to give emmet a serious try, that could work out.

I try to split things up atomically where possible and use a rainbow indentation extension ๐Ÿ˜…
For me, it saves me a bunch when I'm working on demos etc. It's rare I use it for work though.

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt •

It is only partially about indentation, but also about closing tags.

Does any human (not html linter) needs named closing tags. Why not just closing brackets, or nothing (using indentation instead)? Like, I love build.gradle more than pom.xml.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins •

Yeah ๐Ÿ’ฏ

It's an interesting topic. Reminds me of this article about optional HTML and what the browser will put in for you if omit closing tags.

Funny how the thought of .xml to me seems more awkward than .html although they are similar syntax ๐Ÿ˜… It's likely the thought of huge configuration exports from programs, etc.

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surjithctly profile image
Surjith S M •

How do I convert this to pug?

  <div class="words">
      <span style="animation-delay:1ms">Lorem</span>
      <span style="animation-delay:1.8s">Ipsum</span>
      <span style="animation-delay:3.6s">Sit</span>
      <span style="animation-delay:5.4s">Amet</span>
      <span style="animation-delay:7.2s">Text</span>
      <span style="animation-delay:9s">Random</span> 
    </div>
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iamntz profile image
Ionut Staicu •

Who wants an unpopular opinion? Nobody? Ok, here it is: template engines similar to jade, pug, haml & co sucks and should be avoided like plague.

Adds unwanted complexity to a fairly simple concept (basically if you're familiar with XML, you can dig HTML too), make things harder to debug, impose some limits and rises the entry point for beginners.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins • • Edited

It's fine. It's your opinion ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ™‚

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sm0ke profile image
Sm0ke •

Nice, thanks for writing. PUG is such a great engine.
Super flexible and minimalistic.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins •

No problem! ๐Ÿ˜Ž
Yeah, I'm a big fan of it for my demo work. Think it's a great fit. Especially when wanting to generate random markup.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins •

It's definitely a personal preference ๐Ÿ‘ It's not for everyone.

I've rarely worked in teams using "indent-based" syntax. But, I find it great for working on my own demos, etc. In these scenarios, it's only me working on the code ๐Ÿ˜Ž

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adnanbabakan profile image
Adnan Babakan (he/him) •

Thanks for this great post
Although PUG seems pretty cool in practice but I think it is not that much effective and efficient in production and real world.

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jh3y profile image
Jhey Tompkins • • Edited

No problem! ๐Ÿ˜Ž
Thanks for your reply. Yeah, it's cool. There's even a React integration now.

By "production and real-world", do you mean "work, commercial, etc."? I completely get this.
I'll admit, I've rarely used it for work. For one, it would require everyone in a team to be using it. I guess it was a similar thing with CoffeeScript. Potentially more risk of error and not everyone likes using indent based syntax.

That said I find using it very effective and efficient for all of my side projects, demos, etc. ๐Ÿ‘ Pretty much the majority of my work on CodePen uses .pug.

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shinigami92 profile image
Shinigami •

And if you need pug to be formatted... just use my prettier plugin <3

github.com/prettier/plugin-pug

View full discussion (20 comments)

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