How to programmatically clear a material design autocomplete in angularjs?

Question

I have a material design autocomplete working correctly. Now I need to be able to clear the selected element when a button is clicked. I see that the element's delete button that appears on the right has an $mdAutocomplete.clear() call which is exactly what I need but I don't know how to launch that.

How can I capture the element and call the clear() method? Thanks

Answer 1

Try to set the model which is binded to the search text with empty string:

self.clear = function() {
  self.searchText = '';
}

See this codepen