You can also use the $inject service to get whatever service you like. I find that useful if I don't know the service name ahead of time but know the service interface. For example a directive that will plug a table into an ngResource end point or a generic delete-record button which interacts with any api end point. You don't want to re-implement the table directive for every controller or data-source.
template.html
<div my-directive api-service='ServiceName'></div>
my-directive.directive.coffee
angular.module 'my.module'
.factory 'myDirective', ($injector) ->
directive =
restrict: 'A'
link: (scope, element, attributes) ->
scope.apiService = $injector.get(attributes.apiService)
now your 'anonymous' service is fully available. If it is ngResource for example you can then use the standard ngResource interface to get your data
For example:
scope.apiService.query((response) ->
scope.data = response
, (errorResponse) ->
console.log "ERROR fetching data for service: #{attributes.apiService}"
console.log errorResponse.data
)
I have found this technique to be very useful when making elements that interact with API endpoints especially.