How do I pass variables across Jade template blocks in Express 3?

[Aleksey Smolenchuk]

I am running Express 3.0 with Jade template engine. I'm trying to pass a variable from a template page to the main layout page. Like this:

layout.jade (snippet):

!!! 5
html(lang='en')
    head
        meta(charset='utf-8')
        title= locals.title
      
        - if (typeof(stylesheets) !== 'undefined')
            each stylesheet in stylesheets
                link(rel='stylesheet', href='/stylesheet/#{stylesheet}.css')

    body
        block body
           
           

landing.jade (snippet):

stylesheets = ["landing"]
extends layout
   
block body
    h1 Test 1234

The generated code does not include the extra stylesheet tag. I tried `- var stylehseets...` and renaming 'stylesheets' fearing it might be a keyword.

Any suggestions?

[Jan Buschtöns]

That's a general issue
I came across too. I solved it with blogs. (block styles in your
layout and append styles for each included page, same for scripts and
other resources)

I don't like this approach, because defining the same <link> structure
over and over again isn't really DRY. But it's still better then
passing the Array as a local. We could make it DRY by defining a
style(href) mixin at the layout level, so that in append styles, we'd
only have to style(/css/style.css).

How do you guys solve this?

[Aleksey Smolenchuk]

The mixins seems like a good idea!

Set up 'block stylesheets' in the head of layout.jade. Then do

block stylesheets
    mixin stylesheet('style1')
    mixin stylesheet('style2')

in the template part files. This is a pretty good solution actually. Thanks!

[Jan Buschtöns]

I'd recommend appending to the block with block append stylesheets or
just append stylesheets, cause this way you won't overwrite other
stylesheets that already have been added to the block.