Angular Directive updating Parent Controller Object

Question

I've been using Angular for a while but I'm a little lost when it comes to two-way data binding between a Controller (which is using the controller as syntax) and a directive which is inside the template for that controller.

The purpose of the directive is to essentially be an input field for a very specific set of data I need to collect (photograph, text and a few other things).

How it works.

My controller FormCtrl loads in some data from app cache. It then passes this data to an object called ctrl.form_fields.

I need my directive to be able to access ctrl.form_fields to display the data. Additionally, if any change to the data is made within the directive the FromCtrl ctrl.form_fields object is updated.

I've done some research and experimentation on two-way binding between a parent controller and child directive but I can't figure it out. If someone could post up a theoretical example I'd really appreciate it.

I don't want to use $scope.$parent etc... to accomplish this as it will get too messy and difficult to maintain. Plus I'm trying not the use $scope as much as possible.

Cheers, Dean

Answer 1

Maybe I didn't understand your question correctly, but cant you pass the object/value to the directive through attributes, and use a two-way binding expression?

 angular .module('app') .directive('myDirective', function() { return { restrict: 'E', templateUrl: 'myTemplate.html', scope: { obj: "=" // Two way decleration }, controller: function($scope) { console.log($scope.obj); } } }); 

 <my-directive obj="ctrl.object"></my-directive> 

angular

Answer 2

An example of the (part of the) directive:

controller: FooController, // import FooController as './foo.controller';
controllerAs: 'vm',
replace: true,
scope: {
  fields: '=formFields'
},
template: '<input type="text" ng-model="fields" />'

Then in your controller, you can use the reference 'vm.fields'. Your input field should be:

<input type="text" form-fields="fields" />

I haven't tested this though.