Stack Overflow is a community of 4.7 million programmers, just like you, helping each other.

Join them; it only takes a minute:

Sign up
Join the Stack Overflow community to:
  1. Ask programming questions
  2. Answer and help your peers
  3. Get recognized for your expertise

How I can call function defined under controller from any place of web page (outside of controller component)?

It works perfectly when I press "get" button. But I need to call it from outside of div controller. The logic is: by default my div is hidden. Somewhere in navigation menu I press a button and it should show() my div and execute "get" function. How I can achieve this?

My web page is:

<div ng-controller="MyController">
  <input type="text" ng-model="data.firstname" required>
  <input type='text' ng-model="data.lastname" required>

  <form ng-submit="update()"><input type="submit" value="update"></form>
  <form ng-submit="get()"><input type="submit" value="get"></form>
</div>

My js:

   function MyController($scope) {
      // default data and structure
      $scope.data = {
        "firstname" : "Nicolas",
        "lastname" : "Cage"
      };

      $scope.get = function() {
        $.ajax({
           url: "/php/get_data.php?",
           type: "POST",
           timeout: 10000, // 10 seconds for getting result, otherwise error.
           error:function() { alert("Temporary error. Please try again...");},
           complete: function(){ $.unblockUI();},
           beforeSend: function(){ $.blockUI()},
           success: function(data){
            json_answer = eval('(' + data + ')');
            if (json_answer){
                $scope.$apply(function () {
                  $scope.data = json_answer;
            });
            }
        }
    });
  };

  $scope.update = function() {
    $.ajax({
        url: "/php/update_data.php?",
        type: "POST",
        data: $scope.data,
        timeout: 10000, // 10 seconds for getting result, otherwise error.
        error:function() { alert("Temporary error. Please try again...");},
        complete: function(){ $.unblockUI();},
        beforeSend: function(){ $.blockUI()},
        success: function(data){ }
      });
    };
   }
share|improve this question
1  
When you say "...somewhere in navigation menu you press a button...", do you mean to say that this navigation is part of another controller and you wish to call the get() of MyController from the another controller? – callmekatootie May 23 '13 at 9:15
1  
For now navigation menu is not a controller. Just html. Not sure if its possible to call controller function from html/javascript, thats why I posted this question. But yeah, logical to make navigation menu as separate controller. How I can call MyController.get() function from NavigationMenu.Controller ? – Pavel Zdarov May 23 '13 at 9:23
up vote 194 down vote accepted

Here is a way to call controller's function from outside of it:

angular.element(document.getElementById('yourControllerElementID')).scope().get();

where get() is a function from your controller.

You can switch

document.getElementById('yourControllerElementID')` 

to

$('#yourControllerElementID')

If you are using jQuery.

Also if your function means changing anything on your View, you should call

angular.element(document.getElementById('yourControllerElementID')).scope().$apply();

to apply the changes.

One more thing, you should note is that scopes are initialized after the page is loaded, so calling methods from outside of scope should always be done after the page is loaded. Else you will not get to the scope at all.

share|improve this answer
23  
This seems like a code smell since Angular's philosophy is not to mix DOM code with Angular code... – JoeCool Oct 3 '13 at 18:42
6  
so if you're not supposed to mix DOM code with Angular code, if you want certain JQuery animations to fire off in reaction to a variable change in your Angular controller- how exactly do you do that? It would be trivial to do from the controller, but I have no idea how to do it cleanly – Jan Nov 6 '13 at 21:06
3  
I couldn't get the $apply part to work for me, until I wrapped the code into a function, e.g. ..scope.$apply(function() { scope.get() }); – surfitscrollit Jan 7 '15 at 12:07
2  
I actually could access the controller with angular.element(document.getElementById('yourControllerElementID')).scope().con‌​troller; For ex. if use: angular.element(document.getElementById('controller')).scope().get() throws and undefined error, but if i use angular.element(document.getElementById('controller')).scope().controller.get()‌​ it works. – vrunoa Feb 4 '15 at 16:42
2  
Is it possible, that this solution doesn't work in Angular 1.4.9 anymore? I cannot access scope() in the angular.element(...), because it return undefined and a vardump of the angular element/object says that the function scope is located within the __proto__-object. – Smamatti Feb 9 at 16:58

I've found an example on the internet.

Some guy wrote this code and worked perfectly

HTML

<div ng-cloak ng-app="ManagerApp">
    <div id="MainWrap" class="container" ng-controller="ManagerCtrl">
       <span class="label label-info label-ext">Exposing Controller Function outside the module via onClick function call</span>
       <button onClick='ajaxResultPost("Update:Name:With:JOHN","accept",true);'>click me</button>
       <br/> <span class="label label-warning label-ext" ng-bind="customParams.data"></span>
       <br/> <span class="label label-warning label-ext" ng-bind="customParams.type"></span>
       <br/> <span class="label label-warning label-ext" ng-bind="customParams.res"></span>
       <br/>
       <input type="text" ng-model="sampletext" size="60">
       <br/>
    </div>
</div>

JAVASCRIPT

var angularApp = angular.module('ManagerApp', []);
angularApp.controller('ManagerCtrl', ['$scope', function ($scope) {

$scope.customParams = {};

$scope.updateCustomRequest = function (data, type, res) {
    $scope.customParams.data = data;
    $scope.customParams.type = type;
    $scope.customParams.res = res;
    $scope.sampletext = "input text: " + data;
};



}]);

function ajaxResultPost(data, type, res) {
    var scope = angular.element(document.getElementById("MainWrap")).scope();
    scope.$apply(function () {
    scope.updateCustomRequest(data, type, res);
    });
}

Demo

*I did some modifications, see original: font JSfiddle

share|improve this answer
1  
Thanks Roger, very usefull! – Murphy Jul 13 '15 at 22:00

I would rather include the factory as dependencies on the controllers than inject them with their own line of code: http://jsfiddle.net/XqDxG/550/

myModule.factory('mySharedService', function($rootScope) {
    return sharedService = {thing:"value"};
});

function ControllerZero($scope, mySharedService) {
    $scope.thing = mySharedService.thing;

ControllerZero.$inject = ['$scope', 'mySharedService'];

share|improve this answer
    
Hmm. @Anton commented a fiddle below (in May '13) that does BOTH. – Jesse Chisholm Sep 10 '15 at 13:49

It may be worth considering if having your menu without any associated scope is the right way to go. Its not really the angular way.

But, if it is the way you need to go, then you can do it by adding the functions to $rootScope and then within those functions using $broadcast to send events. your controller then uses $on to listen for those events.

Another thing to consider if you do end up having your menu without a scope is that if you have multiple routes, then all of your controllers will have to have their own upate and get functions. (this is assuming you have multiple controllers)

share|improve this answer
    
can you give any simple example of how to call .get() function of ControllerOne from ControllerTwo? my logic is so each controller will have its own .get() .update() functions. I will have MainMenuController from which I need to execute (according to menu item) .get() of necessary controller. – Pavel Zdarov May 23 '13 at 10:21
1  
jsfiddle.net/simpulton/XqDxG – Anton May 23 '13 at 11:24
    
ps, not my code, but it shows how to have multiple controlers sharing functionality – Anton May 23 '13 at 11:24

I use to work with $http, when a want to get some information from a resource I do the following:

angular.module('services.value', [])

.service('Value', function($http, $q) {

var URL = "http://localhost:8080/myWeb/rest/";

var valid = false;

return {
    isValid: valid,
    getIsValid: function(callback){
        return $http.get(URL + email+'/'+password, {cache: false})
                    .success(function(data){
            if(data === 'true'){ valid = true; }
        }).then(callback);
    }}
    });

And the code in the controller:

angular.module('controllers.value', ['services.value'])

.controller('ValueController', function($scope, Value) {
    $scope.obtainValue = function(){
        Value.getIsValid(function(){$scope.printValue();});
    }

    $scope.printValue = function(){
        console.log("Do it, and value is " Value.isValid);
    }
}

I send to the service what function have to call in the controller

share|improve this answer

Dmitry's answer works fine. I just made a simple example using the same technique.

jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/o895a8n8/5/

<button onclick="call()">Call Controller's method from outside</button>
<div  id="container" ng-app="" ng-controller="testController">
</div>

.

function call() {
    var scope = angular.element(document.getElementById('container')).scope();
      scope.$apply(function(){
        scope.msg = scope.msg + ' I am the newly addded message from the outside of the controller.';
    })
    alert(scope.returnHello());
}

function testController($scope) {
    $scope.msg = "Hello from a controller method.";
    $scope.returnHello = function() {
        return $scope.msg ; 
    }
}
share|improve this answer

I have multiple routes and multiple controllers, so I could not get the accepted answer to work. I found that adding the function to the window works:

fooModule.controller("fooViewModel", function ($scope, fooService, $http, $q, $routeParams, $window, $location, viewModelHelper, $interval) {
    $scope.initFoo = function () {
        // do angular stuff
    }
    var initialize = function () {
        $scope.initFoo();
    }

    initialize();

    window.fooreinit = initialize;

}

Then outside the controller, this can be done:

function ElsewhereOnThePage() {
    if (typeof(fooreinit) == 'function') { fooreinit(); }
}
share|improve this answer

The solution angular.element(document.getElementById('ID')).scope().get() stopped working for me in angular 1.5.2. Sombody mention in a comment that this doesn't work in 1.4.9 also. I fixed it by storing the scope in a global variable:

var scopeHolder;
angular.module('fooApp').controller('appCtrl', function ($scope) {
    $scope = function bar(){
        console.log("foo");        
    };
    scopeHolder = $scope;
})

call from custom code:

scopeHolder.bar()
share|improve this answer

protected by Pankaj Parkar Mar 9 at 19:36

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site.

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.