AngularJS access parent scope from child controller

Question

I've set up my controllers using data-ng-controller="xyzController as vm"

I have a scenario with parent / child nested controllers. I have no problem accessing parent properties in the nested html by using $parent.vm.property, but I cannot figure out how to access the parent property from within my child controller.

I've tried injecting $scope and then using $scope.$parent.vm.property, but this isn't working?

Can anyone offer advice?

Answer 1

If your HTML is like below you could do something like this:

<div ng-controller="ParentCtrl">     <div ng-controller="ChildCtrl">     </div> </div> 

Then you can access the parent scope as follows

function ParentCtrl($scope) {     $scope.cities = ["NY", "Amsterdam", "Barcelona"]; }  function ChildCtrl($scope) {     $scope.parentcities = $scope.$parent.cities; } 

If you want to access a parent controller from your view you have to do something like this:

<div ng-controller="xyzController as vm">    {{$parent.property}} </div> 

See jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/2r728/

Update

Actually since you defined cities in the parent controller your child controller will inherit all scope variables. So theoritically you don't have to call $parent. The above example can also be written as follows:

function ParentCtrl($scope) {     $scope.cities = ["NY","Amsterdam","Barcelona"]; }  function ChildCtrl($scope) {     $scope.parentCities = $scope.cities; } 

The AngularJS docs use this approach, here you can read more about the $scope.

Another update

I think this is a better answer to the original poster.

HTML

<div ng-app ng-controller="ParentCtrl as pc">     <div ng-controller="ChildCtrl as cc">         <pre>{{cc.parentCities | json}}</pre>         <pre>{{pc.cities | json}}</pre>     </div> </div> 

JS

function ParentCtrl() {     var vm = this;     vm.cities = ["NY", "Amsterdam", "Barcelona"]; }  function ChildCtrl() {     var vm = this;     ParentCtrl.apply(vm, arguments); // Inherit parent control      vm.parentCities = vm.cities; } 

If you use the controller as method you can also access the parent scope as follows

function ChildCtrl($scope) {     var vm = this;     vm.parentCities = $scope.pc.cities; // note pc is a reference to the "ParentCtrl as pc" } 

As you can see there are many different ways in accessing $scopes.

Updated fiddle

function ParentCtrl() {      var vm = this;      vm.cities = ["NY", "Amsterdam", "Barcelona"];  }        function ChildCtrl($scope) {      var vm = this;      ParentCtrl.apply(vm, arguments);            vm.parentCitiesByScope = $scope.pc.cities;      vm.parentCities = vm.cities;  }      

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.20/angular.min.js"></script>  <div ng-app ng-controller="ParentCtrl as pc">    <div ng-controller="ChildCtrl as cc">      <pre>{{cc.parentCities | json}}</pre>      <pre>{{cc.parentCitiesByScope | json }}</pre>      <pre>{{pc.cities | json}}</pre>    </div>  </div>