How to pass NgModelController to directive controller?

Question

Can i pass NgModelController to directive controller? That's required so i can assign values to model in controller.

This example does not work:

   angular
     .module('directives.selectBox', [])
     .directive('selectBox', selectBox);  

    function selectBox() {
        return {
          restrict   : 'E',
          require    : 'ngModel',
          scope      : {
             list     : '=',
          },
          replace     : true,
          templateUrl : 'common/directives/selectBox/selectBox.html',
          controller :  SelectBoxController,
        };
    }  
    function SelectBoxController(ngModel) {
       ngModel.$setViewValue(10); // ???
    }

Answer 1

Pretty simple actually, what you need to do is to get access to the element by injecting $element into your controller and then calling the .controller() function on it.

angular
   .module('directives.selectBox', [])
   .directive('selectBox', selectBox);  

function selectBox() {
    return {
      restrict   : 'E',
      require    : 'ngModel',
      scope      : {
         list     : '=',
      },
      replace     : true,
      templateUrl : 'common/directives/selectBox/selectBox.html',
      controller :  SelectBoxController,
    };
}  
function SelectBoxController($element) {
   var ngModel = $element.controller('ngModel');
   ngModel.$setViewValue(10); // ???
}

Angular 1.5 update

Note that in AngularJS 1.5 the new component() function was added in addition to the existing directive() function. This function takes a configuratoin object as second parameter that allows you to directly specify the required controllers, which will then be bound to the component's controller.

Below the same example again, but as component.

angular
   .module('directives.selectBox', [])
   .component('selectBox', 
        {
            controller: SelectBoxController,
            controllerAs: 'vm',
            templateUrl : 'common/directives/selectBox/selectBox.html',
            bindings: {
                list: '=' // though '<' would be better
            }, 
            require: {
                ngModel: '='
            },
            // replace: true ==> No longer possible with component
        }
    );  

function SelectBoxController($element) {

    $onInit() {
        // This function is called automatically whenever the controller is ready
        this.ngModel.$setViewValue(10); // ???
    }
}

I hope I typed it out ok, this tiny textarea is hardly an IDE :)