AngularJS: API: ng/type/ngModel.NgModelController


ngModel.NgModelController

  1. - type in module ng

NgModelController provides API for the ng-model directive. The controller contains services for data-binding, validation, CSS updates, and value formatting and parsing. It purposefully does not contain any logic which deals with DOM rendering or listening to DOM events. Such DOM related logic should be provided by other directives which make use of NgModelController for data-binding.

Custom Control Example

This example shows how to use NgModelController with a custom control to achieve data-binding. Notice how different directives (contenteditable, ng-model, and required) collaborate together to achieve the desired result.

Note that contenteditable is an HTML5 attribute, which tells the browser to let the element contents be edited in place by the user. This will not work on older browsers.

We are using the $sce service here and include the $sanitize module to automatically remove "bad" content like inline event listener (e.g. <span onclick="...">). However, as we are using $sce the model can still decide to to provide unsafe content if it marks that content using the $sce service.

style.css
[contenteditable] {
  border: 1px solid black;
  background-color: white;
  min-height: 20px;}

.ng-invalid {
  border: 1px solid red;}
script.js
angular.module('customControl', ['ngSanitize']).
  directive('contenteditable', ['$sce', function($sce) {
    return {
      restrict: 'A', // only activate on element attribute
      require: '?ngModel', // get a hold of NgModelController
      link: function(scope, element, attrs, ngModel) {
        if(!ngModel) return; // do nothing if no ng-model

        // Specify how UI should be updated
        ngModel.$render = function() {
          element.html($sce.getTrustedHtml(ngModel.$viewValue || ''));
        };

        // Listen for change events to enable binding
        element.on('blur keyup change', function() {
          scope.$apply(read);
        });
        read(); // initialize

        // Write data to the model
        function read() {
          var html = element.html();
          // When we clear the content editable the browser leaves a <br> behind
          // If strip-br attribute is provided then we strip this out
          if( attrs.stripBr && html == '<br>' ) {
            html = '';
          }
          ngModel.$setViewValue(html);
        }
      }
    };
  }]);
index.html
<form name="myForm">
 <div contenteditable
      name="myWidget" ng-model="userContent"
      strip-br="true"
      required>Change me!</div>
  <span ng-show="myForm.myWidget.$error.required">Required!</span>
 <hr>
 <textarea ng-model="userContent"></textarea></form>
protractor.js
it('should data-bind and become invalid', function() {if (browser.params.browser == 'safari' || browser.params.browser == 'firefox') {
  // SafariDriver can't handle contenteditable
  // and Firefox driver can't clear contenteditables very well
  return;}var contentEditable = element(by.css('[contenteditable]'));var content = 'Change me!';

expect(contentEditable.getText()).toEqual(content);

contentEditable.clear();
contentEditable.sendKeys(protractor.Key.BACK_SPACE);
expect(contentEditable.getText()).toEqual('');
expect(contentEditable.getAttribute('class')).toMatch(/ng-invalid-required/);});

Methods

  • $render();

    Called when the view needs to be updated. It is expected that the user of the ng-model directive will implement this method.

    The $render() method is invoked in the following situations:

    • $rollbackViewValue() is called. If we are rolling back the view value to the last committed value then $render() is called to update the input control.
    • The value referenced by ng-model is changed programmatically and both the $modelValue and the $viewValue are different to last time.

    Since ng-model does not do a deep watch, $render() is only invoked if the values of $modelValue and $viewValue are actually different to their previous value. If $modelValue or $viewValue are objects (rather than a string or number) then $render() will not be invoked if you only change a property on the objects.

  • $isEmpty(value);

    This is called when we need to determine if the value of the input is empty.

    For instance, the required directive does this to work out if the input has data or not. The default $isEmpty function checks whether the value is undefined, '', null or NaN.

    You can override this for input directives whose concept of being empty is different to the default. The checkboxInputType directive does this because in its case a value of false implies empty.

    Parameters

    ParamTypeDetails
    value*

    Reference to check.

    Returns

    boolean

    True if value is empty.

  • $setValidity(validationErrorKey, isValid);

    Change the validity state, and notifies the form when the control changes validity. (i.e. it does not notify form if given validator is already marked as invalid).

    This method can be called within $parsers/$formatters. However, if possible, please use the ngModel.$validators pipeline which is designed to handle validations with true/false values.

    Parameters

    ParamTypeDetails
    validationErrorKeystring

    Name of the validator. the validationErrorKey will assign to $error[validationErrorKey]=!isValid so that it is available for data-binding. The validationErrorKey should be in camelCase and will get converted into dash-case for class name. Example: myError will result in ng-valid-my-error and ng-invalid-my-error class and can be bound to as {{someForm.someControl.$error.myError}} .

    isValidboolean

    Whether the current state is valid (true) or invalid (false).

  • $setPristine();

    Sets the control to its pristine state.

    This method can be called to remove the 'ng-dirty' class and set the control to its pristine state (ng-pristine class). A model is considered to be pristine when the model has not been changed from when first compiled within then form.

  • $setUntouched();

    Sets the control to its untouched state.

    This method can be called to remove the 'ng-touched' class and set the control to its untouched state (ng-untouched class). Upon compilation, a model is set as untouched by default, however this function can be used to restore that state if the model has already been touched by the user.

  • $setTouched();

    Sets the control to its touched state.

    This method can be called to remove the 'ng-untouched' class and set the control to its touched state (ng-touched class). A model is considered to be touched when the user has first interacted (focussed) on the model input element and then shifted focus away (blurred) from the input element.

  • $rollbackViewValue();

    Cancel an update and reset the input element's value to prevent an update to the $modelValue, which may be caused by a pending debounced event or because the input is waiting for a some future event.

    If you have an input that uses ng-model-options to set up debounced events or events such as blur you can have a situation where there is a period when the $viewValue is out of synch with the ngModel's $modelValue.

    In this case, you can run into difficulties if you try to update the ngModel's $modelValue programmatically before these debounced/future events have resolved/occurred, because Angular's dirty checking mechanism is not able to tell whether the model has actually changed or not.

    The $rollbackViewValue() method should be called before programmatically changing the model of an input which may have such events pending. This is important in order to make sure that the input field will be updated with the new model value and any pending operations are cancelled.

    app.js
    angular.module('cancel-update-example', [])
    
    .controller('CancelUpdateController', ['$scope', function($scope) {
      $scope.resetWithCancel = function (e) {
        if (e.keyCode == 27) {
          $scope.myForm.myInput1.$rollbackViewValue();
          $scope.myValue = '';
        }
      };
      $scope.resetWithoutCancel = function (e) {
        if (e.keyCode == 27) {
          $scope.myValue = '';
        }
      };}]);
    index.html
    <div ng-controller="CancelUpdateController">
      <p>Try typing something in each input.  See that the model only updates when you
         blur off the input.
       </p>
       <p>Now see what happens if you start typing then press the Escape key</p>
    
      <form name="myForm" ng-model-options="{ updateOn: 'blur' }">
        <p>With $rollbackViewValue()</p>
        <input name="myInput1" ng-model="myValue" ng-keydown="resetWithCancel($event)"><br/>
        myValue: "{{ myValue }}"
    
        <p>Without $rollbackViewValue()</p>
        <input name="myInput2" ng-model="myValue" ng-keydown="resetWithoutCancel($event)"><br/>
        myValue: "{{ myValue }}"
      </form></div>

  • $validate();

    Runs each of the registered validations set on the $validators object.

  • $commitViewValue();

    Commit a pending update to the $modelValue.

    Updates may be pending by a debounced event or because the input is waiting for a some future event defined in ng-model-options. this method is rarely needed as NgModelController usually handles calling this in response to input events.

  • $setViewValue(value, trigger);

    Update the view value.

    This method should be called when an input directive want to change the view value; typically, this is done from within a DOM event handler.

    For example input calls it when the value of the input changes and select calls it when an option is selected.

    If the new value is an object (rather than a string or a number), we should make a copy of the object before passing it to $setViewValue. This is because ngModel does not perform a deep watch of objects, it only looks for a change of identity. If you only change the property of the object then ngModel will not realise that the object has changed and will not invoke the $parsers and $validators pipelines.

    For this reason, you should not change properties of the copy once it has been passed to $setViewValue. Otherwise you may cause the model value on the scope to change incorrectly.

    When this method is called, the new value will be staged for committing through the $parsers and $validators pipelines. If there are no special ngModelOptions specified then the staged value sent directly for processing, finally to be applied to $modelValue and then the expression specified in the ng-model attribute.

    Lastly, all the registered change listeners, in the $viewChangeListeners list, are called.

    In case the ngModelOptions directive is used with updateOn and the default trigger is not listed, all those actions will remain pending until one of the updateOn events is triggered on the DOM element. All these actions will be debounced if the ngModelOptions directive is used with a custom debounce for this particular event.

    Note that calling this function does not trigger a $digest.

    Parameters

    ParamTypeDetails
    valuestring

    Value from the view.

    triggerstring

    Event that triggered the update.

Properties

  • $viewValue

    string

    Actual string value in the view.

  • $modelValue

    *

    The value in the model, that the control is bound to.

  • $parsers

    Array.<Function>

    Array of functions to execute, as a pipeline, whenever the control reads value from the DOM. Each function is called, in turn, passing the value through to the next. The last return value is used to populate the model. Used to sanitize / convert the value as well as validation. For validation, the parsers should update the validity state using $setValidity(), and return undefined for invalid values.

  • $formatters

    Array.<Function>

    Array of functions to execute, as a pipeline, whenever the model value changes. Each function is called, in turn, passing the value through to the next. Used to format / convert values for display in the control and validation.

    function formatter(value) {
      if (value) {
        return value.toUpperCase();
      }}
    ngModel.$formatters.push(formatter);
  • $validators

    Object.<string, function>

    A collection of validators that are applied whenever the model value changes. The key value within the object refers to the name of the validator while the function refers to the validation operation. The validation operation is provided with the model value as an argument and must return a true or false value depending on the response of that validation.

  • $viewChangeListeners

    Array.<Function>

    Array of functions to execute whenever the view value has changed. It is called with no arguments, and its return value is ignored. This can be used in place of additional $watches against the model value.

  • $error

    Object

    An object hash with all errors as keys.

  • $untouched

    boolean

    True if control has not lost focus yet.

  • $touched

    boolean

    True if control has lost focus.

  • $pristine

    boolean

    True if user has not interacted with the control yet.

  • $dirty

    boolean

    True if user has already interacted with the control.

  • $valid

    boolean

    True if there is no error.

  • $invalid

    boolean

    True if at least one error on the control.