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Stephane Rolland
Stephane Rolland

Reputation: 39926

ng-app vs. data-ng-app, what is the difference?

I'm currently looking at this start tutorial video for angular.js

At some moment (after 12'40"), the speaker states that the attributes ng-app and data-ng-app="" are more or less equivalent inside the <html> tag, and so are ng-model="my_data_binding and data-ng-model="my_data_binding". However The speaker says the html would be validated through different validators, depending on which attribute is used.

Could you explain the difference between the two ways, ng- prefix against data-ng- prefix ?

Upvotes: 235

Views: 87254

Answers (6)

Eddy
Eddy

Reputation: 3733

Short Answer:

`ng-model` and `data-ng-model` are same and equivalent!

Why?

  1. reason for: data- prefix
    HTML5 specification expects any custom attribute to be prefixed by data-.

  2. reason for: both ng-model and data-ng-model are same and equivalent.

AngularJS Document - Normalization

Angular normalizes an element's tag and attribute name to determine which elements match which directives. We typically refer to directives by their case-sensitive camelCase normalized name (e.g. ngModel). However, since HTML is case-insensitive, we refer to directives in the DOM by lower-case forms, typically using dash-delimited attributes on DOM elements (e.g. ng-model).

The normalization process is as follows:

  1. Strip x- and data- from the front of the element/attributes.
  2. Convert the :, -, or_-delimited name to camelCase.

For example:

The following forms are all equivalent and match the ngBind directive: 
<div ng-controller="Controller">
  Hello <input ng-model='name'> <hr/>
  <span ng-bind="name"></span> <br/>
  <span ng:bind="name"></span> <br/>
  <span ng_bind="name"></span> <br/>
  <span data-ng-bind="name"></span> <br/>
  <span x-ng-bind="name"></span> <br/>
</div>

Upvotes: 17

Kees Hessels
Kees Hessels

Reputation: 11

if you want to manipulate html or html-fragments on your server before serving it to the browser, you most definitely want to be using data-ng-xxx attributes instead of just ng-xxx attributes.

  1. It makes your html valid, meaning it can be used by html (server based) parsers like domdocument (php) or others. These parsers often fail on not well formed html.
  2. Angular normalizes the attribute, but remember, that's on the client, not on the server.

Upvotes: 1

NgN
NgN

Reputation: 88

You can use data-ng-, instead of ng-, if you want to make your page HTML valid.

Upvotes: 2

Code Whisperer
Code Whisperer

Reputation: 23662

Good question. The difference is simple - there is absolutely no difference between the two except that certain HTML5 validators will throw an error on a property like ng-app, but they don't throw an error for anything prefixed with data-, like data-ng-app.

So to answer your question, use data-ng-app if you would like validating your HTML to be a bit easier.

Fun fact: You can also use x-ng-app to the same effect.

Upvotes: 411

srinu
srinu

Reputation: 661

From Angularjs Documentation

Angular normalizes an element's tag and attribute name to determine which elements match which directives. We typically refer to directives by their case-sensitive camelCase normalized name (e.g. ngModel). However, since HTML is case-insensitive, we refer to directives in the DOM by lower-case forms, typically using dash-delimited attributes on DOM elements (e.g. ng-model).

The normalization process is as follows:

Strip x- and data- from the front of the element/attributes. Convert the :, -, or _-delimited name to camelCase. Here are some equivalent examples of elements that match ngBind:

based on above statement below all are valid directives

1. ng-bind
2. ng:bind
3. ng_bind
4. data-ng-bind
5. x-ng-bind

Upvotes: 66

Manu Clementz
Manu Clementz

Reputation: 1797

The differences lies in the fact that custom data-*attributes are valid in the HTML5 specification. So if you need your markup to be validated, you should use them rather than the ng attributes.

Upvotes: 29

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