I'm making a node.js server which sends emails on demand. I'm importing an html file, which I assign to "output". This is then emailed to the receiver.
app.post("/send", (req, res) => {
console.log("sending email...");
const token = req.body.data.token;
const output = fs.readFileSync('emailcontents.html').toString();
This works. But what would be the best way to pass the "token" variable to emailcontents.html?
If I misunderstand your requirement, please let me know. I'll do my best to modify the answer.
According to the conversation in comments, we could know you want to send a email to the user instead of using res.render to render emailcontents.html content for user in browser.
That email should contain the token.
And you want to insert token into your emailcontents.html instead appending.
We assume your html content look like this.
<h1>weclome here</h1>
<p> Please use this token to do something</p>.
You want to insert token into {here}.
<h1>weclome here</h1>
<p> Please use this {here} to do something</p>.
instead of {here}.
<h1>weclome here</h1>
<p> Please use this token to do something</p>. {here}
According above the requirement, I come up with two options.
replace method.Before use this method, you need to modify your html like this.
<h1> this is emailcontents.html content</h1>
<h1>{token}</h1>
Then use replace method to replace {token}.
app.post("/send", (req, res) => {
console.log("sending email...");
const token = req.body.data.token;
fs.readFile('emailcontents.html', (err, data) => {
const output = data.toString().replace("{token}", token)
// do other send mail job
})
Note: you could use replace only when your html is very very very simple.
If your html is this, it's more complicated to handle it.
In this situation, I'll recommend you use second solution.
<h1>weclome here</h1>
<h1>{token}: {token}</h1>
You could use template engine to pass parameter, such as ejs.
It could work in any case.
<!-- emailcontents.ejs -->
<h1>this is emailcontents.html content</h1>
<h1>Please use this <%= token %> to do something</h1>
const ejs = require("ejs")
app.post("/send", (req, res) => {
console.log("sending email...");
const token = req.body.data.token;
ejs.renderFile("./emailcontents.ejs", {token: token}, (error, output) => {
// output is html string with token which you provide
// do send mail job
})
<h1>{token}: {token}</h1>, but you wanna replace second {token}? Maybe you could add symbol with + into <h1>{token}: +{token}</h1>, and use replace("+{token}", token). But, every time you changed your html, you might change your string in your replace(string, token) method. It depend on the html content you wanted. You also could image what if you want to replace multiple {token}. That's why I said you could simply use replace method only when your html content is simple without situation I mentioned.