this vs scope in AngularJS controllers

Question

In the  Create Components  section of AngularJS s homepage  there is this example   controller  function  scope   element      var panes    scope panes          scope select   function pane        angular forEach panes  function pane          pane selected   false              pane selected   true        this addPane   function pane        if  panes length    0   scope select pane       panes push pane           Notice how the select method is added to  scope  but the addPane method is added to this  If I change it to  scope addPane  the code breaks   The documentation says that there in fact is a difference  but it doesn t mention what the difference is      Previous versions of Angular  pre 1 0 RC  allowed you to use this interchangeably with the  scope method  but this is no longer the case  Inside of methods defined on the scope this and  scope are interchangeable  angular sets this to  scope   but not otherwise inside your controller constructor    How does this and  scope work in AngularJS controllers

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In this course https   www codeschool com courses shaping-up-with-angular-js  they explain how to use  this  and many other stuff   If you add method to the controller through  this  method  you have to call it in the view with controller s name  dot  your property or method   For example using your controller in the view you may have code like this        lt div data-ng-controller  YourController as aliasOfYourController  gt          Your first pane is   aliasOfYourController panes 0          lt  div gt

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scope has a different  this  then the controller  this  Thus if you put a console log this  inside controller it gives you a object controller  and this addPane   adds addPane Method to the controller Object  But the  scope has different scope and all method in its scope need to be accesed by  scope methodName    this methodName   inside controller means to add methos inside controller object  scope functionName   is in HTML and inside    scope functionName        this name  Name         or      scope myname  myname   are same    Paste this code in your editor and open console to see       lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html lang  en  gt   lt head gt       lt meta charset  UTF-8  gt       lt meta name  viewport  content  width device-width  initial-scale 1 0  gt       lt meta http-equiv  X-UA-Compatible  content  ie edge  gt       lt title gt this  sope vs controller lt  title gt   lt script src  https   ajax googleapis com ajax libs angularjs 1 6 7 angular min js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script gt          var app angular module  myApp       app controller  ctrlExample  function  scope             console log  ctrl  this   this               this object  of controller different then  scope            scope firstName  Andy              scope lastName  Bot             this nickName  ABot             this controllerMethod function                 console log  controllerMethod   this                          scope show function                  console log   scope  this  this                   this of  scope                scope message  Welcome User                             lt  script gt   lt  head gt   lt body ng-app  myApp   gt   lt div ng-controller  ctrlExample  gt         Comming From  SCOPE    firstName           lt br gt  lt br gt         Comming from  SCOPE   lastName           lt br gt  lt br gt         Should Come From Controller   nickName           lt p gt              Blank nickName is because nickName is attached to              this  of controller          lt  p gt           lt br gt  lt br gt          lt button ng-click  controllerMethod    gt Controller Method lt  button gt           lt br gt  lt br gt          lt button ng-click  show    gt Show lt  button gt          lt p gt   message   lt  p gt       lt  div gt    lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

The reason  addPane  is assigned to this is because of the  lt pane gt  directive   The pane directive does require    tabs   which puts the tabs controller object from a parent directive  into the link function   addPane is assigned to this so that the pane link function can see it   Then in the pane link function  addPane is just a property of the tabs controller  and it s just tabsControllerObject addPane   So the pane directive s linking function can access the tabs controller object and therefore access the addPane method   I hope my explanation is clear enough   it s kind of hard to explain

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Previous versions of Angular  pre 1 0 RC  allowed you to use this   interchangeably with the  scope method  but this is no longer the   case  Inside of methods defined on the scope this and  scope are   interchangeable  angular sets this to  scope   but not otherwise   inside your controller constructor    To bring back this behaviour  does anyone know why was it changed   you can add   return angular extend  scope  this     at the end of your controller function  provided that  scope was injected to this controller function    This has a nice effect of having access to parent scope via controller object that you can get in child with require    myParentDirective

User · Answer

I recommend you to read the following post  AngularJS   Controller as  or   scope    It describes very well the advantages of using  Controller as  to expose variables over   scope    I know you asked specifically about methods and not variables  but I think that it s better to stick to one technique and be consistent with it    So for my opinion  because of the variables issue discussed in the post  it s better to just use the  Controller as  technique and also apply it to the methods

User · Answer

How does this and  scope work in AngularJS controllers     Short answer    this   When the controller constructor function is called  this is the controller  When a function defined on a  scope object is called  this is the  scope in effect when the function was called    This may  or may not   be the  scope that the function is defined on   So  inside the function  this and  scope may not be the same    scope   Every controller has an associated  scope object  A controller  constructor  function is responsible for setting model properties and functions behaviour on its associated  scope  Only methods defined on this  scope object  and parent scope objects  if prototypical inheritance is in play  are accessible from the HTML view   E g   from ng-click  filters  etc     Long answer   A controller function is a JavaScript constructor function   When the constructor function executes  e g   when a view loads   this  i e   the  function context   is set to the controller object  So in the  tabs  controller constructor function  when the addPane function is created  this addPane   function pane            it is created on the controller object  not on  scope   Views cannot see the addPane function -- they only have access to functions defined on  scope   In other words  in the HTML  this won t work    lt a ng-click  addPane newPane   gt won t work lt  a gt    After the  tabs  controller constructor function executes  we have the following     The dashed black line indicates prototypal inheritance -- an isolate scope prototypically inherits from Scope    It does not prototypically inherit from the scope in effect where the directive was encountered in the HTML    Now  the pane directive s link function wants to communicate with the tabs directive  which really means it needs to affect the tabs isolate  scope in some way    Events could be used  but another mechanism is to have the pane directive require the tabs controller    There appears to be no mechanism for the pane directive to require the tabs  scope    So  this begs the question  if we only have access to the tabs controller  how do we get access to the tabs isolate  scope  which is what we really want    Well  the red dotted line is the answer   The addPane   function s  scope   I m referring to JavaScript s function scope closures here  gives the function access to the tabs isolate  scope   I e   addPane   has access to the  tabs IsolateScope  in the diagram above because of a closure that was created when addPane   was defined    If we instead defined addPane   on the tabs  scope object  the pane directive would not have access to this function  and hence it would have no way to communicate with the tabs  scope    To answer the other part of your question  how does  scope work in controllers    Within functions defined on  scope  this is set to  the  scope in effect where when the function was called    Suppose we have the following HTML    lt div ng-controller  ParentCtrl  gt      lt a ng-click  logThisAndScope    gt log  this  and  scope lt  a gt  - parent scope     lt div ng-controller  ChildCtrl  gt         lt a ng-click  logThisAndScope    gt log  this  and  scope lt  a gt  - child scope     lt  div gt   lt  div gt    And the ParentCtrl  Solely  has   scope logThisAndScope   function         console log this   scope      Clicking the first link will show that this and  scope are the same  since  the scope in effect when the function was called  is the scope associated with the ParentCtrl   Clicking the second link will reveal this and  scope are not the same  since  the scope in effect when the function was called  is the scope associated with the ChildCtrl   So here  this is set to ChildCtrl s  scope   Inside the method   scope is still the ParentCtrl s  scope   Fiddle  I try to not use this inside of a function defined on  scope  as it becomes confusing which  scope is being affected  especially considering that ng-repeat  ng-include  ng-switch  and directives can all create their own child scopes

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I just read a pretty interesting explanation on the difference between the two  and a growing preference to attach models to the controller and alias the controller to bind models to the view  http   toddmotto com digging-into-angulars-controller-as-syntax  is the article   NOTE  The original link still exists  but changes in formatting have made it hard to read  It s easier to view in the original   He doesn t mention it but when defining directives  if you need to share something between multiple directives and don t want a service  there are legitimate cases where services are a hassle  then attach the data to the parent directive s controller  The  scope service provides plenty of useful things   watch being the most obvious  but if all you need to bind data to the view  using the plain controller and  controller as  in the template is fine and arguably preferable

[angularjs] 'this' vs $scope in AngularJS controllers

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