Can you pass parameters to an AngularJS controller on creation

Question

I have a controller responsible for communicating with an API to update properties of a user  name  email  etc  Each user has an  id  which is passed from the server when the profile page is viewed    I would like to pass this value to the AngularJS controller so it knows what the API entry point is for the current user  I ve tried passing the value in ng-controller  For example   function UserCtrl id   scope   filter      scope connection    resource  api com user     id    and in the HTML   lt body ng-controller  UserCtrl    id      gt    where    id    print the id sent from the server  but I get errors    What is the correct way to pass a value into a controller on its creation

User · Answer

You can do it when setting up the routes for e.g.

 .when('/newitem/:itemType', {
            templateUrl: 'scripts/components/items/newEditItem.html',
            controller: 'NewEditItemController as vm',
            resolve: {
              isEditMode: function () {
                return true;
              }
            },
        })

And later use it as

(function () {
  'use strict';

  angular
    .module('myApp')
    .controller('NewEditItemController', NewEditItemController);

  NewEditItemController.$inject = ['$http','isEditMode',$routeParams,];

  function NewEditItemController($http, isEditMode, $routeParams) {
    /* jshint validthis:true */

    var vm = this;
    vm.isEditMode = isEditMode;
    vm.itemType = $routeParams.itemType;
  }
})();

So here when we set up the route we sent :itemType and retrive it later from $routeParams.

User · Answer

It looks like the best solution for you is actually a directive   This allows you to still have your controller  but define custom properties for it   Use this if you need access to variables in the wrapping scope   angular module  myModule   directive  user   function   filter      return       link  function  scope  element  attrs           scope connection    resource  api com user     attrs userId                    lt user user-id     id     gt  lt  user gt    Use this if you don t need access to variables in the wrapping scope   angular module  myModule   directive  user   function   filter      return       scope          userId                 link  function  scope  element  attrs           scope connection    resource  api com user     scope userId                    lt user user-id     id     gt  lt  user gt

User · Answer

Like  akonsu and Nigel Findlater suggest  you can read the url where url is index html  user  id with  routeParams id and use it inside the controller    your app    var app   angular module  myApp      ngResource       app config    routeProvider   function  routeProvider         routeProvider when    type  id    templateUrl   myView html   controller   myCtrl            the resource service  app factory  MyElements      resource   function  resource         return  resource  url to json  type  id     type   type   id   id             the controller   app controller  MyCtrl      scope     routeParams    MyElements   function  scope   routeParams  MyElements        MyElements get   type    routeParams type   id    routeParams id    function elm             scope elm   elm                then  elm is accessible in the view depending on the id

User · Answer

There is another way to pass parameters to a controller by injecting  routeParams into your controller and then using url parameters described here What  39 s the most concise way to read query parameters in AngularJS

User · Answer

This is an expansion of  Michael Tiller s excellent answer  His answer works for initializing variables from the view by injecting the  attrs object into the controller  The problem occurs if the same controller is called from  routeProvider when you navigate by routing  Then you get injector error Unknown provider    attrsProvider because  attrs is only available for injection when the view is compiled  The solution is to pass the variable  foo  through  routeParams when initializing controller from route and by  attrs when initializing controller from view  Here s my solution   From Route   routeProvider          when   mypage  foo                 templateUrl   templates mypage html               controller   MyPageController               caseInsensitiveMatch  true              resolve                     attrs  function                          return                                                   This handles a url such as   mypage bar   As you can see foo is passed by url param and we provide the  injector with a blank object for  attrs so no injector errors   From View   lt div ng-controller  MyPageController  data-foo  bar  gt    lt  div gt    Now the controller  var app   angular module  myapp        app controller  MyPageController     scope     attrs     routeParams    function  scope   attrs   routeParams         now you can initialize foo  If  attrs contains foo  it s been initialized from view      else find it from  routeParams    var foo    attrs foo   attrs foo    routeParams foo     console log foo     prints  bar

User · Answer

Here is a solution  based on Marcin Wyszynski s suggestion  which works where you want to pass a value into your controller but you aren t explicitly declaring the controller in your html  which ng-init seems to require  - if  for example  you are rendering your templates with ng-view and declaring each controller for the corresponding route via routeProvider   JS  messageboard directive  currentuser     CurrentUser   function CurrentUser      return function scope  element  attrs        CurrentUser name   attrs name              html   lt div ng-app  app  gt     lt div class  view-container  gt       lt div ng-view currentuser name  testusername  class  view-frame animate-view  gt  lt  div gt     lt  div gt   lt  div gt    In this solution  CurrentUser is a service which can be injected into any controller  with the  name property then available    Two notes    a problem I ve encountered is that  name gets set after the controller loads  so as a workaround I have a short timeout before rendering username on the controller s scope  Is there a neat way of waiting until  name has been set on the service  this feels like a very easy way to get a current user into your Angular App with all the authentication kept outside Angular  You could have a before filter to prevent non-logged in users getting to the html where your Angular app is bootstrapped in  and within that html you could just interpolate the logged in user s name and even their ID if you wanted to interact with the user s details via http requests from your Angular app  You could allow non-logged in users to use the Angular App with a default  guest user   Any advice on why this approach would be bad would be welcome - it feels too easy to be sensible

User · Answer

One way of doing that would be having a separate service that can be used as a  vessel  for those arguments where they re public data members

User · Answer

I didn t really like any of the solutions here for my particular use case  so I figured I d post what I did because I didn t see it here     I simply wanted to use a controller more like a directive  within a ng-repeat loop    lt div ng-repeat  objParameter in   id  a    id  b    id  c     gt     lt div ng-controller  DirectiveLikeController as ctrl  gt  lt  div gt   lt  div gt    Now  in order to access the objParameter on creation within each DirectiveLikeController  or to get the up-to-date objParameter at ANY time   all I need to do is inject  scope and call  scope  eval  objParameter     var app   angular module  myapp        app controller  DirectiveLikeController     scope    function  scope         print  a  for the 1st instance   b  for the 2nd instance  and  c  for the 3rd     console log  scope  eval  objParameter   id          The only real downside that I see is that it requires the parent controller to know that the parameter is named objParameter

User · Answer

No  It is not possible  I think you can use ng-init as hack http   docs angularjs org api ng directive ngInit

User · Answer

I m very late to this and I have no idea if this is a good idea  but you can include the  attrs injectable in the controller function allowing the controller to be initialized using  arguments  provided on an element  e g   app controller  modelController   function  scope   attrs        if    attrs model  throw new Error  No model for modelController            Initialize  scope using the value of the model attribute  e g        scope url    http   example com fetch model    attrs model       lt div ng-controller  modelController  model  foobar  gt     lt a href    url    gt Click here lt  a gt   lt  div gt    Again  no idea if this is a good idea  but it seems to work and is another alternative

User · Answer

If ng-init is not for passing objects into  scope  you can always write your own directive  So here is what I got   http   jsfiddle net goliney 89bLj   Javasript   var app   angular module  myApp        app directive  initData   function  parse        return function scope  element  attrs              modify scope         var model    parse attrs initData           model scope               function Ctrl1  scope          should be defined      scope inputdata    foo  east   bar  west        Html    lt div ng-controller  Ctrl1  gt       lt div init-data  inputdata foo 123  inputdata bar 321  gt  lt  div gt   lt  div gt    But my approach can only modify objects  which are already defined at controller

User · Answer

I found passing variables from  routeProvider usefull   For example  you use one controller MyController for multiple screens  passing some very important variable  mySuperConstant  inside   Use that simple structure   Router    routeProvider              when   this-page                     templateUrl   common html                   controller  MyController                  mySuperConstant   123                              when   that-page                     templateUrl   common html                   controller  MyController                  mySuperConstant   456                              when   another-page                     templateUrl   common html                   controller  MyController                  mySuperConstant   789                  MyController       MyController  function   scope   route            var mySuperConstant   route current mySuperConstant          alert mySuperConstant

User · Answer

The view should not dictate config  In Angular  the template should never dictate configuration  which is inherently what people desire when they want to pass arguments to controllers from a template file  This becomes a slippery slope  If config settings are hard-coded in templates  such as by a directive or controller argument attribute   you can no longer re-use that template for anything but that single use  Soon you ll want to re-use that template  but with different config and now in order to do so you ll either be pre-processing the templates to inject variables before it gets passed to angular or using massive directives to spit out giant blocks of HTML so you re-use all of the controller HTML except for the wrapper div and it s arguments  For small projects it s no big deal  For something big  what angular excels at   it gets ugly quick   The Alternative  Modules  This type of configuration is what modules were designed to handle  In many angular tutorials people have a single module for their entire application  but really the system is designed and fully supports many small modules each which wrap small pieces of the total application  Ideally  controllers  modules etc would be declared in separate files and stitched together in specific re-usable chunks  When your application is designed this way  you get a lot of re-use in addition to easy controller arguments   The example below has 2 modules  re-using the same controller  but each with their own config settings  That config settings are passed in via dependency injection using module value  This adheres to the angular way because we have the following  constructor dependency injection  reusable controller code  reusable controller templates  the controller div could easily be included with ng-include   easily unit-testable system without HTML  and lastly re-usable modules as the vehicle for stitching the pieces together   Here s an example    lt  -- index html -- gt   lt div id  module1  gt       lt div ng-controller  MyCtrl  gt           lt div gt   foo   lt  div gt       lt  div gt   lt  div gt   lt div id  module2  gt       lt div ng-controller  MyCtrl  gt           lt div gt   foo   lt  div gt       lt  div gt   lt  div gt   lt script gt         part of this template  or a JS file designed to be used with this template     angular element document  ready function             angular bootstrap document getElementById  module1      module1             angular bootstrap document getElementById  module2      module2              lt  script gt    lt  -- scripts which will likely in be in their seperate files -- gt   lt script gt         MyCtrl js     var MyCtrl   function  scope  foo         scope foo   foo             MyCtrl  inject      scope    foo            Module1 js     var module1   angular module  module1            module1 value  foo    fooValue1        module1 controller  MyCtrl   MyCtrl           Module2 js file     var module2   angular module  module2            module2 value  foo    fooValue2        module2 controller  MyCtrl   MyCtrl    lt  script gt    See it in action  jsFiddle

User · Answer

This question is old but I struggled for a long time trying to get an answer to this problem that would work for my needs and did not easily find it   I believe my following solution is much better than the currently accepted one  perhaps because angular has added functionality since this question was originally posed     Short answer  using the Module value method allows you to pass data into a controller constructor   See my plunker here  I create a model object  then associate it with the module s controller  referencing it with the name  model   HTML   JS     lt html gt     lt head gt       lt script gt        var model     id   1   name   foo             document  ready function            var module   angular module  myApp                module value  model   model           module controller  MyController     model   MyController            angular bootstrap document    myApp                      function confirmModelEdited             alert  model name      model name     nmodel id      model id                lt  script gt      lt  head gt     lt body  gt         lt div ng-controller  MyController as controller  gt          id    controller model id    lt br gt          name   lt input ng-model  controller model name   gt   controller model name            lt br gt  lt button ng-click  controller incrementId    gt increment ID lt  button gt           lt br gt  lt button onclick  confirmModelEdited    gt confirm model was edited lt  button gt       lt  div gt     lt  body gt    lt  html gt    The constructor in my controller then accepts a parameter with that same identifier  model  which it can then access     Controller  function MyController  model      this model   model     MyController prototype incrementId   function       this model id   this model id   1      Notes    I m using manual initialization of bootstrapping  which allows me to initialize my model before sending it over to angular   This plays much more nicely with existing code  as you can wait to set up your relevant data and only compile the angular subset of your app on demand when you want to   In the plunker I ve added a button to alert the values of the model object that was initially defined in javascript and passed to angular  just to confirm that angular is truly referencing the model object  rather than copying it and working with a copy     On this line   module controller  MyController     model   MyController      I m passing the MyController object into the Module controller function  rather than declaring as a function inline   I think this allows us to far more clearly define our controller object  but Angular documentation tends to do it inline so I thought it bears clarification   I m using the  controller as  syntax and assigning values to the  this  property of MyController  rather than using the   scope  variable   I believe this would work fine using  scope just as well  the controller assignment would then look something like this   module controller  MyController      scope    model   MyController      and the controller constructor would have a signature like this   function MyController   scope  model      If for whatever reason you wanted to  you could also attach this model as a value of a second module  which you then attach as a dependency to your primary module   I believe his solution is much better than the currently accepted one because   The model passed to the controller is actually a javascript object  not a string that gets evaluated   It is a true reference to the object and changes to it affect other references to this model object  Angular says that the accepted answer s use of ng-init is a misuse  which this solution doesn t do    The way Angular seems to work in most all other examples I ve seen has the controller defining the data of the model  which never made sense to me  there is no separation between the model and the controller  that doesn t really seem like MVC to me   This solution allows you to really have a completely separate model object which you pass into the controller   Also of note  if you use the ng-include directive you can put all your angular html in a separate file  fully separating your model view and controller into separate modular pieces

User · Answer

This also works   Javascript   var app   angular module  angularApp         app controller  MainCtrl   function  scope  name  id         scope id   id       scope name   name         and more init       Html    lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html ng-app  angularApp  gt     lt head lang  en  gt       lt script src    ajax googleapis com ajax libs angularjs 1 0 3 angular min js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script src  app js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script gt         app value  name    James   value  id    007         lt  script gt     lt  head gt     lt body ng-controller  MainCtrl  gt       lt h1 gt I am    name     id   lt  h1 gt     lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

If using angular-ui-router  then this is the correct solution  https   github com angular-ui ui-router wiki resolve  Basically  you declare a set of dependecies to  resolve  before the controller is instantiated  You may declare dependencies for each of your  states   These dependencies are then passed in the controller s  constructor

User · Answer

Notes   This answer is old  This is just a proof of concept on how the desired outcome can be achieved  However  it may not be the best solution as per some comments below  I don t have any documentation to support or reject the following approach  Please refer to some of the comments below for further discussion on this topic   Original Answer   I answered this to  Yes you absolutely can do so using ng-init and a simple init function   Here is the example of it on plunker  HTML    lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html ng-app  angularjs-starter  gt     lt head lang  en  gt       lt script src    ajax googleapis com ajax libs angularjs 1 0 3 angular min js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script src  app js  gt  lt  script gt     lt  head gt       lt body ng-controller  MainCtrl  ng-init  init  James Bond   007    gt       lt h1 gt I am    name     id   lt  h1 gt     lt  body gt   lt  html gt    JavaScript  var app   angular module  angularjs-starter         app controller  MainCtrl   function  scope        scope init   function name  id            This function is sort of private constructor for controller      scope id   id       scope name   name         Based on passed argument you can make a call to resource       and initialize more objects        resource getMeBond 007

[javascript] Can you pass parameters to an AngularJS controller on creation?

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