Angular JS What is the need of the directive s link function when we already had directive s controller with scope

Question

I need to perform some operations on scope and the template  It seems that I can do that in either the link function or the controller function  since both have access to the scope    When is it the case when I have to use link function and not the controller   angular module  myApp   directive  abc   function  timeout        return           restrict   EA           replace  true          transclude  true          scope  true          link  function scope  elem  attr       link function               controller  function  scope   element       controller function                 Also  I understand that link is the non-angular world  So  I can use  watch   digest and  apply   What is the significance of the link function  when we already had controller

User · Answer

Why controllers are needed

The difference between link and controller comes into play when you want to nest directives in your DOM and expose API functions from the parent directive to the nested ones.

From the docs:

Best Practice: use controller when you want to expose an API to other directives. Otherwise use link.

Say you want to have two directives my-form and my-text-input and you want my-text-input directive to appear only inside my-form and nowhere else.

In that case, you will say while defining the directive my-text-input that it requires a controller from the parent DOM element using the require argument, like this: require: '^myForm'. Now the controller from the parent element will be injected into the link function as the fourth argument, following $scope, element, attributes. You can call functions on that controller and communicate with the parent directive.

Moreover, if such a controller is not found, an error will be raised.

Why use link at all

There is no real need to use the link function if one is defining the controller since the $scope is available on the controller. Moreover, while defining both link and controller, one does need to be careful about the order of invocation of the two (controller is executed before).

However, in keeping with the Angular way, most DOM manipulation and 2-way binding using $watchers is usually done in the link function while the API for children and $scope manipulation is done in the controller. This is not a hard and fast rule, but doing so will make the code more modular and help in separation of concerns (controller will maintain the directive state and link function will maintain the DOM + outside bindings).

User · Answer

After my initial struggle with the link and controller functions and reading quite a lot about them  I think now I have the answer   First lets understand   How do angular directives work in a nutshell    We begin with a template  as a string or loaded to a string   var templateString     lt div my-directive gt   5   10   lt  div gt    Now  this templateString is wrapped as an angular element  var el   angular element templateString   With el  now we compile it with  compile to get back the link function   var l    compile el   Here is what happens     compile walks through the whole template and collects all the directives that it recognizes  All the directives that are discovered are compiled recursively and their link functions are collected  Then  all the link functions are wrapped in a new link function and returned as l   Finally  we provide scope function to this l  link  function which further executes the wrapped link functions with this scope and their corresponding elements   l scope  This adds the template as a new node to the DOM and invokes controller which adds its watches to the scope which is shared with the template in DOM      Comparing compile vs link vs controller     Every directive is compiled only once and link function is retained for re-use  Therefore  if there s something applicable to all instances of a directive should be performed inside directive s compile function  Now  after compilation we have link function which is executed while attaching the template to the DOM  So  therefore we perform everything that is specific to every instance of the directive  For eg  attaching events  mutating the template based on scope  etc  Finally  the controller is meant to be available to be live and reactive while the directive works on the DOM  after getting attached   Therefore    1  After setting up the view V   i e  template  with link   scope is our  M  and  controller is our  C  in M V C   2  Take advantage the 2-way binding with  scope by setting up watches    3   scope watches are expected to be added in the controller since this is what is watching the template during run-time    4  Finally  controller is also used to be able to communicate among related directives   Like myTabs example in https   docs angularjs org guide directive    5  It s true that we could ve done all this in the link function as well but its about separation of concerns    Therefore  finally we have the following which fits all the pieces perfectly

User · Answer

The controller function object represents an abstraction model-view-controller  MVC   While there is nothing new to write about MVC  it is still the most significant advanatage of angular  split the concerns into smaller pieces  And that s it  nothing more  so if you need to react on Model changes coming from View the Controller is the right person to do that job   The story about link function is different  it is coming from different perspective then MVC   And is really essential  once we want to cross the boundaries of a controller model view  template    Let  start with the parameters which are passed into the link function   function link scope  element  attrs       scope is an Angular scope object  element is the jqLite-wrapped element that this directive matches  attrs is an object with the normalized attribute names and their corresponding values    To put the link into the context  we should mention that all directives are going through this initialization process steps  Compile  Link  An Extract from Brad Green and Shyam Seshadri book Angular JS   Compile phase  a sister of link  let s mention it here to get a clear picture    In this phase  Angular walks the DOM to identify all the registered  directives in the template  For each directive  it then transforms the  DOM based on the directive   s rules  template  replace  transclude  and  so on   and calls the compile function if it exists  The result is a  compiled template function   Link phase      To make the view dynamic  Angular then runs a link function for each   directive  The link functions typically creates listeners on the DOM   or the model  These listeners keep the view and the model in sync at   all times    A nice example how to use the link could be found here  Creating Custom Directives  See the example  Creating a Directive that Manipulates the DOM  which inserts a  date-time  into page  refreshed every second    Just a very short snippet from that rich source above  showing the real manipulation with DOM  There is hooked function to  timeout service  and also it is cleared in its destructor call to avoid memory leaks   directive  myCurrentTime   function  timeout  dateFilter      function link scope  element  attrs               the not MVC job must be done  function updateTime        element text dateFilter new Date    format       here we are manipulating the DOM      function scheduleUpdate           save the timeoutId for canceling    timeoutId    timeout function          updateTime       update DOM      scheduleUpdate       schedule the next update       1000        element on   destroy   function         timeout cancel timeoutId

[javascript] Angular JS: What is the need of the directive’s link function when we already had directive’s controller with scope?

Why controllers are needed

Why use link at all

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