Use underscore inside Angular controllers

Question

When you include Underscore, it attaches itself to the window object, and so is available globally.

So you can use it from Angular code as-is.

You can also wrap it up in a service or a factory, if you'd like it to be injected:

var underscore = angular.module('underscore', []);
underscore.factory('_', ['$window', function($window) {
  return $window._; // assumes underscore has already been loaded on the page
}]);

And then you can ask for the _ in your app's module:

// Declare it as a dependency of your module
var app = angular.module('app', ['underscore']);

// And then inject it where you need it
app.controller('Ctrl', function($scope, _) {
  // do stuff
});

I have implemented @satchmorun's suggestion here: https://github.com/andresesfm/angular-underscore-module

To use it:

1. Make sure you have included underscore.js in your project

   <script src="bower_components/underscore/underscore.js">
   

2. Get it:

   bower install angular-underscore-module
   

3. Add angular-underscore-module.js to your main file (index.html)

   <script src="bower_components/angular-underscore-module/angular-underscore-module.js"></script>
   

4. Add the module as a dependency in your App definition

   var myapp = angular.module('MyApp', ['underscore'])
   

5. To use, add as an injected dependency to your Controller/Service and it is ready to use

   angular.module('MyApp').controller('MyCtrl', function ($scope, _) {
   ...
   //Use underscore
   _.each(...);
   ...
   

I use this:

var myapp = angular.module('myApp', [])
  // allow DI for use in controllers, unit tests
  .constant('_', window._)
  // use in views, ng-repeat="x in _.range(3)"
  .run(function ($rootScope) {
     $rootScope._ = window._;
  });

See https://github.com/angular/angular.js/wiki/Understanding-Dependency-Injection about halfway for some more info on run.

You can also take a look at this module for angular

https://github.com/floydsoft/angular-underscore

If you don't mind using lodash try out https://github.com/rockabox/ng-lodash it wraps lodash completely so it is the only dependency and you don't need to load any other script files such as lodash.

Lodash is completely off of the window scope and no "hoping" that it's been loaded prior to your module.