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up vote 1 down vote favorite

I have an application that looks like such:

var app = angular.module('app', []);

app.Person = function(firstName, lastName) {
    this.firstName = firstName;
    this.lastName = lastName;
}

app.controller = function('myController', function($scope) {

    $scope.pageData = [];
    $scope.pageData.firstName = ['John'];
    $scope.pageData.lastName = ['Smith'];

    $scope.pageData.people = [];

    // just a demo. The point of this is just to show the controller creating Person objects 
    // assume that first name and last name will always be the same length;
    for (var i = 0; i < firstName.length; i++) {
        $scope.pageData.people.push(new Person($scope.pageData.firstName[i], $scope.pageData.lastName[i]);
    }
});

Is there a better way of structuring Person? Should it be in a factory or service?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

As Pierre already mentioned, you don't need to create new class for anemic model (like in backbone for example). But sometimes you want to go with rich domain model. Then you can use factory:

angular.module('app')
    .factory('Person', function () {

        function Person(firstName, lastName) {
            this.firstName = firstName;
            this.lastName = lastName;
        }

        Person.prototype.doSomething = function () {};

        return Person;
    });

and inject your model constructor into controller (or service)

app.controller = function('myController', function($scope, Person) {

    $scope.pageData = [];
    $scope.pageData.firstName = ['John'];
    $scope.pageData.lastName = ['Smith'];

    $scope.pageData.people = [];

    // just a demo. The point of this is just to show the controller creating Person objects 
    // assume that first name and last name will always be the same length;
    for (var i = 0; i < firstName.length; i++) {
        $scope.pageData.people.push(new Person($scope.pageData.firstName[i], $scope.pageData.lastName[i]);
    }
});

Notice that you still have to instantiate new Person, you can use builder pattern to avoid that. Check this blog for more information: https://medium.com/opinionated-angularjs/angular-model-objects-with-javascript-classes-2e6a067c73bc

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up vote 1 down vote

Because Javascript allows you to easily create objects without an explicit class, I usually find it unnecessary to define a class that doesn't have any functions. That is, there's no benefit to using new Person(x,y) over {firstName: x, lastName: y}. In fact, I would back up a step and have that kind of data in my model instead of separate arrays of first and last names:

$scope.pageData = [{firstName: 'John', lastName: 'Smith'} /* etc */];
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