CODEWITHSUNDEEP
angularjs
Ian Warburton
Ian Warburton

Reputation: 15726

Where are controller instances stored?

If I add a controller to a DOM element with ng-controller, where is the resulting controller instance stored?

Is it added as a property of the DOM element?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 124

Answers (1)

Pieter Herroelen
Pieter Herroelen

Reputation: 6066

Yes they are stored on the DOM element. AngularJS uses the data() method of the element API (aka JqLite) to store the controller.

I've made an example on JSFiddle.

myApp.directive('myDirective', function() {
   return {
      link: function(scope,element) {
          scope.name = element.data('$ngControllerController').test();  
      }
   }
});

function MyCtrl($scope) {
   this.test = function() {
       return "world";
   }
}

And yes, you can also access it with 

angular.element('...').controller()

But you don't need Batarang for this. It's part of the element API. This is the preferred way of obtaining access (or you can create a directive with a require attribute).

BTW, the scope is also stored this way, so you can get access to it via

element.data('$scope')

Upvotes: 3

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