Why is $location not accessible in this controller?

Question

As said in the question, $location service is not accessible in the controller at the debugger point.

$(document).ready(function() {
    return angular.module('dashboard.controllers').controller(
    'projectController', 
    ['$route', '$routeParams', '$scope', '$location', '$rootScope',
    'ProjectDataService', 'UserService', 

    function($route, $routeParams,$scope, $location, $rootScope,
    ProjectDataService, UserService) 
    {
        return ProjectDataService.loadProjectData().then(function(d) {
            $scope.projectSearch = "";
            $scope.projects = ProjectDataService.getProjectData();
            debugger;
        });
    }
  ]);
});

Answer 1

The culprit here is Closures. I would suggest taking a quick look at Mozilla's MDN article on the topic .

In your case, the anonymous function passed to then() is the closure. Since you haven't used $location in the scope of your anonymous function, it isn't available when the anonymous function is executed. Therefore, you are unable to see the value in the debugger.

If you were to use $location inside the scope of the anonymous function, you would then see it available inside the debugger as it would be in scope.