What is dateFilter and where can I find out more about it?

Question

I am going through the Angular documentation on directives: http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/directive

One of the examples on the page (full working example here http://jsbin.com/osOQOYag/3/edit?html,js,output

angular.module('docsTimeDirective', [])   .controller('Ctrl2', function($scope) {     $scope.format = 'M/d/yy h:mm:ss a';   })   .directive('myCurrentTime', function($interval, dateFilter) {      function link(scope, element, attrs) {       var format,           timeoutId;        function updateTime() {         element.text(dateFilter(new Date(), format));       }        scope.$watch(attrs.myCurrentTime, function(value) {         format = value;         updateTime();       });        element.on('$destroy', function() {         $interval.cancel(timeoutId);       });        // start the UI update process; save the timeoutId for canceling       timeoutId = $interval(function() {         updateTime(); // update DOM       }, 1000);     }      return {       link: link     };   }); 

On the line:

.directive('myCurrentTime', function($interval, dateFilter) { 

I cannot for the life of me find any information on the .directive prototype and cannot find any documentation on dateFilter anywhere either. Also, I know that dateFilter is found in the un-minified version of AngularJS (although the name disappears in the minified version). Can anyone provide some guidance (and possibly a link) explaining more about dateFilter and similar functions?

Answer 1

Date filter docs are here: http://code.angularjs.org/1.2.5/docs/api/ng.filter:date

Here's part of the docs that explain filter injection: http://code.angularjs.org/1.2.5/docs/guide/filter#using-filters-in-controllers-and-services

Filters are usually used in view expressions ({{myDate | date:'short'}}), but they can also be used in your JS code. Filters are injected by appending string Filter to the filter name (e.g. date -> dateFilter).

app.controller('MyCtrl', function($scope, dateFilter, lowercaseFilter){   $scope.myDate = new Date();   $scope.myDateFormatted = dateFilter($scope.myDate, 'shortDate');    $scope.myString = 'Some String';   $scope.myStringLowerCased = lowercaseFilter($scope.myString); }); 

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