EJS Could not find include include file

Question

This might sound like duplicate of this and few others but the solutions given in those stack were not helpful.

I am creating an HTML using EJS templating, but while including a partial I am receiving following error :

 throw new Error('Could not find include include file.');

Below is the project structure

 |
 |
 |-----index.js
 |-----view
 |       |
 |       |----pages
 |       |      |----mainTemplate.ejs
 |       |----partials
 |       |      |----bodyTemplate.ejs
 |       |

Now as per doc the include takes relative path so code in my mainTemplate.ejs includes the bodyTemplate like this

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Sample</title>
</head>

<body>

<!-- Insert Body here -->
<div class="container">

    <div class="starter-template">
        <% include ../partials/bodyTemplate.ejs%>
    </div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

While code in bodyTemlate.ejs is

<% console.log("#########################");%>
<h1>Hi there !! </h1>

I am receiving Could not find include include file This error is not much specific as to which path is being accessed here.

I have tried removing .. from the path still no use? I have same project structure in my EJS application and this same code snippet works just fine? Is this something specific to express causing such issue?

EDIT

This is index.js

var fs = require('fs'),
  ejs = require("ejs");

function ejs2html(path, information) {
  fs.readFile(path, 'utf8', function(err, data) {
    if (err) {
      console.log("ERROR: " + err);
      return false;
    }
    var ejs_string = data,
      template = ejs.compile(ejs_string),
      html = template(information);
    fs.writeFile(path + '.html', html, function(err) {
      if (err) {
        console.log(err);
        return false
      }
      return true;
    });
  });
}
// console.log("This is path --> ", __dirname + '/view/pages/bodyTemplate.ejs');
ejs2html(__dirname + '/view/pages/mainTemplate.ejs');

well I've a working code snippet without parenthesis, but will give it a shot if you say so — TGW, Dec 22 '17 at 06:34
i mean like this `<% include("../partials/bodyTemplate.ejs") %>` — Alex Michailidis, Dec 22 '17 at 06:37
throw err; ^ Error: ejs:13 11| 12|
>> 13| <% include("../partials/bodyTemplate.ejs") %> 14|
15| 16| Could not find include include file. — TGW, Dec 22 '17 at 06:39
sorry for bad formatting in comment, but it gives same error just with stack trace — TGW, Dec 22 '17 at 06:39
I tried your code and it's working on me, can you please post what your index.js is? How exactly are you rendering mainTemplate? — Alex Michailidis, Dec 22 '17 at 06:58

Alex Michailidis · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-04T08:49:28.920

The problem was that you are trying to compile the html after you got it as a string from fs that way ejs has no idea where that file located and where to look for relative templates.

var fs = require('fs'),
    ejs = require("ejs");

function ejs2html(path, information) {
    fs.readFile(path, 'utf8', function (err, data) {
        if (err) {
            console.log("ERROR: " + err);
            return false;
        }
        var ejs_string = data,
            template = ejs.compile(ejs_string, {
                filename: path
            }),
            html = template(information);
        fs.writeFile(path + '.html', html, function (err) {
            if (err) {
                console.log(err);
                return false
            }
            return true;
        });
    });
}
// console.log("This is path --> ", __dirname + '/view/pages/bodyTemplate.ejs');
ejs2html(__dirname + '/view/pages/mainTemplate.ejs');

Basically, I pass {filename: path} in order to tell ejs where the file is originally located.

Although I believe the thing you are trying to do, ejs has already implemented it with the renderFile method. Check this alternate function that will do what you want.

var fs = require('fs'),
    ejs = require("ejs");

function ejs2html2(path, information) {
    ejs.renderFile(path, function (err, html) {
        if (err) {
            console.log("ERROR: " + err);
            return false;
        }
        fs.writeFile(path + '.html', html, function (err) {
            if (err) {
                console.log(err);
                return false
            }
            return true;
        });
    })
}
ejs2html2(__dirname + '/view/pages/mainTemplate.ejs');

This works cool, but in this case I had to remove the aforementioned parenthesis. Having parenthesis did not show the content of bodyTemplate.html — TGW, Dec 22 '17 at 09:27

EJS Could not find include include file

1 Answers1