express view engine', 'ejs

Step 1: Install Express

To use the EJS view engine in your Express application, you first need to install Express. Express is a fast, unopinionated, and minimalist web framework for Node.js.

Step 2: Create an Express application

After installing Express, you can create an Express application by requiring the express module and calling the express() function. This will create an instance of the Express application.

Step 3: Set up EJS as the view engine

To use EJS as the view engine in your Express application, you need to set it up. This involves setting the 'view engine' property of the app object to 'ejs'. This tells Express to use EJS as the default view engine for rendering templates.

Step 4: Set the views directory

Next, you need to set the views directory where your EJS templates will be located. This can be done by using the app.set() method and passing in 'views' as the first argument and the path to your views directory as the second argument.

Step 5: Create an EJS template

Now that you have set up Express and configured EJS as the view engine, you can create an EJS template. An EJS template is a regular HTML file with embedded JavaScript code. You can use EJS tags to insert dynamic content into your template.

Step 6: Render the EJS template

To render an EJS template in your Express application, you need to call the res.render() method and pass in the name of the EJS template file without the file extension. Express will automatically look for the template file in the views directory.

Step 7: Pass data to the EJS template

You can pass data to the EJS template by passing an object as the second argument to the res.render() method. This object can contain any data that you want to make available in the template. In the template, you can access this data using EJS tags.

Step 8: Display the rendered template

Finally, you need to display the rendered template in the browser. This can be done by sending the rendered template as the response to the client using the res.send() method.

That's it! By following these steps, you can set up and use the EJS view engine in your Express application.