Checking if object is empty, works with ng-show but not from controller?

Question

I have a JS object declared like so

$scope.items = {}; 

I also have a $http request that fills this object with items. I would like to detect if this item is empty, it appears that ng-show supports this... I enter

ng-show="items" 

and magically it works,I would also like to do the same from a controller but i can't seem to get it to work, it appears I may have to iterate over the object to see if it has any properties or use lodash or underscore.

Is there an alternative?

I did try

alert($scope.items == true); 

but it always returns false , when the object is created and when populated with $http, so its not working that way.

Answer 1

Or you could keep it simple by doing something like this:

alert(angular.equals({}, $scope.items)); 

Answer 2

In a private project a wrote this filter

angular.module('myApp')     .filter('isEmpty', function () {         var bar;         return function (obj) {             for (bar in obj) {                 if (obj.hasOwnProperty(bar)) {                     return false;                 }             }             return true;         };     }); 

usage:

<p ng-hide="items | isEmpty">Some Content</p> 

testing:

describe('Filter: isEmpty', function () {      // load the filter's module     beforeEach(module('myApp'));      // initialize a new instance of the filter before each test     var isEmpty;     beforeEach(inject(function ($filter) {         isEmpty = $filter('isEmpty');     }));      it('should return the input prefixed with "isEmpty filter:"', function () {           expect(isEmpty({})).toBe(true);           expect(isEmpty({foo: "bar"})).toBe(false);     });  }); 

regards.