Pull mongo data to ejs template - node.js

Question

I have the following basic document in mongo:
connecting to: test
> db.car.find();
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5657c6acf4175001ccfd0ea8"), "make" : "VW" }
I am using express, mongodb native client (not mongoose) and ejs.
collection.find().toArray(function (err, result) {
if (err) {
console.log(err);
} else if (result.length) {
console.log('Found:', result);
mk = result;
console.log('mk = ', mk);
} else {
console.log('No document(s) found with defined "find" criteria!');
}
//Close connection
db.close();
});
}
});
Here is the render code:
// index page
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.render('pages/index', { make: result });
});
And i want to pass the data make: VW into my index.ejs file:
<h2>Cars:</h2>
<h3>My favorite make is <%= make %>
This should be real simple and straightforward but i just don't understand how to pass the "mk" variable (which i can console.log to the screen) to be rendered by the ejs view?

Answer 1

You should use the find method inside the route (or with a callback) to get the result and render it:
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
collection.find().toArray(function(err, result) {
if(err) {
console.log(err);
res.status('400').send({error: err});
} else if(result.length) {
console.log('Found:', result);
mk = result;
console.log('mk = ', mk);
res.render('pages/index', {make: mk});
} else {
console.log('No document(s) found with defined "find" criteria!');
res.status('400').send({error: 'No document(s) found'});
}
//Close connection
db.close();
});
});

Answer 2

Very simple, your are outputting an array of JSON objects
Here is one way to visualise it:
[{a:b},{a:b},{a:b},{a:b}];
If you want the first result it would be array[0].a
so you simply need to call it this way:
<%= make[0].(your database key here) =>
//example
<%= make[0].name =>
A more sensible way to get this done would be to iterate through the array and output only the result you want on the server side. If you send all your data to your client you might have security issues depending on what you send.

Answer 3

It should be simple, but you are defining mk just like this: mk = result So because you want to pass a variable to an ejs file you need
"var mk = result"
Have a good day, Ben.