jQuery Templating provides $.template() (see description in source code) - it returns array of strings after evaluating cached template with your data. I am writing from scratch (and from experiments in Chrome s console), but you ll get the whole idea.

1. Create and cache a named template function

   $("template-selector").template("template-name");
   

2. Get your template function and invoke it with your data

   var tmpl = $.template("template-name"); // template function
   var strings = tmpl($, {data: {<your data here>}}); // array of strings
   var output = strings.join(  ); // single string
   

The answers here didn t help me, however Adam s reply set me on the right track: any jQuery wrapped element has a .html() method.

var output = $( "#infoWindowTemplate" ).tmpl( city_data ).html()

or if you need text...

var output = $( "#infoWindowTemplate" ).tmpl( city_data ).text()

but please take note, that the outermost(root) element of the template is skipped, so you should make your templates look something like this:

  <script id= infoWindowTemplate  type= text/x-jquery-tmpl > 
    <div class= city_info >
      <h1 class= title ><a href="${link}">${name}</a></h1>
      <p class= meta >${count} offers</p>
    </div>
  </script> 

or just use the jQuery outerHtml plugin ( http://darlesson.com/jquery/outerhtml/ ) and replace .html() with .outerHTML()

You could do it by just putting the result in a temporary container and taking the innerHTML of it, like this:

var str = $("<div />").append($.tmpl(myTemplate, myData)).html();

jQuery.tmpl returns an HTMLElement wrapped in a jQuery object, which could be used in the same way as rendered strings were in the old template system.

var $template = $( #template ),
    html = $.tmpl($template, data).get();

I suspect that this might actually be faster than regular strings, but I don t have any profiling data for this yet.

Update

I did some basic profiling between Mustache.js and jQuery.tmpl, and the stats do not look good.

I started with 1,000 preloaded records and generated templates for them several times, averaging the results.

Mustache.js: 1783ms
jQuery.tmpl: 2243ms

I might wait until jQuery.tmpl closes that gap before switching.

This works correctly

    var s = $.tmpl(url, dataContext).get()[0].data;

I was wrong, above example works only if returned is somethig other that html. In case of html I use

    var s = $.tmpl(url, dataContext).get()[0].outerHTML

EDIT: After some digging I discovered diffrences between Chrome and FF (above examples works in Chrome).

Finally I found cross browser working method, lets assume that we like to build a tag. So we template will look like

    <a href= ${url} >${text}</a>

them simplest way to get resul as a string is to wrap template inside any tag and then use .html() function

    var t =  <div><a href= ${url} >${text}</a></div> 
    var d = {url:  stackoverflow.com , text:  best site };
    var html = $.tmpl(s, d).get()[0];
    html = $(html).html();  // trick is here

You can prepare template data like this

var tmplData = {link:"your link",name:"yourname",count:5};
$("#idofelementwhereuwanttoappend").append($("#infoWindowTemplate").tmpl(tmpldata));

This idofelementwhereuwanttoappend is id where your template data will be rendered.