From an underscore.js template to a DOM element

Right now I'm using the following line of code to retrieve an Underscore template and create a DOM element from the template, using jQuery.

var element = $(_.template($('#template').html())());

It works, but I think this looks a bit messy/confusing, so I was wondering if there's a better way to do this?

Updated for Underscore 1.7+: There's really not much better you can do in newer versions of Underscore since _.template always returns a function:

template _.template(templateString, [settings])
Compiles JavaScript templates into functions that can be evaluated for rendering.

You used to be able to say _.template(tmpl, data) (see below) to get a filled-in template but no longer.

You can however hide some of the parentheses inside a function with things like:

var tmpl_to_html = function(id) {
    var $el = $('#' + id);
    var fn  = _.template($el.html());
    return fn();
};
var $e = $(tmpl_to_html('template'));

or:

var tmpl_to_html = function(id, data) {
    var $el = $('#' + id);
    var fn  = _.template($el.html());
    return fn(data);
};
var $e = $(tmpl_to_html('template'));
var $x = $(tmpl_to_html('other', { a: 'b' }));

---

For old versions of Underscore: You can get the filled in template from _.template by supplying the data parameter:

template _.template(templateString, [data], [settings])
[...]
If you're writing a one-off, you can pass the data object as the second parameter to template in order to render immediately instead of returning a template function.

Anything truthy will probably due for data but an empty object is probably your best bet:

var $e = $(_.template($('#template').html(), { }));

That's still a bit noisy but you can always wrap the _.template call in another function:

var tmpl_to_html = function(id) {
    var $el = $('#' + id);
    return _.template($el.html(), { });
};
var $e = $(tmpl_to_html('template'));

How you bust it into functions depends on your preference what parts you'd be using elsewhere.