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Minor version releases in AngularJS introduce several breaking changes that may require changes to your application's source code; for instance from 1.0 to 1.2 and from 1.2 to 1.3.

Although we try to avoid breaking changes, there are some cases where it is unavoidable.

Migrating from 1.2 to 1.3

Angular Expression Parsing ($parse + $interpolate)

You can no longer invoke .bind, .call or .apply on a function in angular expressions. This is to disallow changing the behaviour of existing functions in an unforeseen fashion.

The (deprecated) proto property does not work inside angular expressions anymore.

This prevents the use of {define,lookup}{Getter,Setter} inside angular expressions. If you really need them for some reason, please wrap/bind them to make them less dangerous, then make them available through the scope object.

This prevents the use of Object inside angular expressions. If you need Object.keys, make it accessible in the scope.

Miscellaneous Angular helpers

This changes angular.copy so that it applies the prototype of the original object to the copied object. Previously, angular.copy would copy properties of the original object's prototype chain directly onto the copied object.

This means that if you iterate over only the copied object's hasOwnProperty properties, it will no longer contain the properties from the prototype. This is actually much more reasonable behaviour and it is unlikely that applications are actually relying on this.

If this behaviour is relied upon, in an app, then one should simply iterate over all the properties on the object (and its inherited properties) and not filter them with hasOwnProperty.

Be aware that this change also uses a feature that is not compatible with IE8. If you need this to work on IE8 then you would need to provide a polyfill for Object.create and Object.getPrototypeOf.

This change also makes our forEach behave more like Array#forEach.

If you expected toJson to strip these types of properties before, you will have to manually do this yourself now.

jqLite / JQuery

Angular HTML Compiler ($compile)

The isolated scope of a component directive no longer leaks into the template that contains the instance of the directive. This means that you can no longer access the isolated scope from attributes on the element where the isolated directive is defined.

See https://github.com/angular/angular.js/issues/10236 for an example.

Requesting isolate scope and any other scope on a single element is an error. Before this change, the compiler let two directives request a child scope and an isolate scope if the compiler applied them in the order of non-isolate scope directive followed by isolate scope directive.

Now the compiler will error regardless of the order.

If you find that your code is now throwing a $compile:multidir error, check that you do not have directives on the same element that are trying to request both an isolate and a non-isolate scope and fix your code.

Before:

directive('directiveName', function() {
  return {
    link: function(scope, elm, attr) {
      var observer = attr.$observe('someAttr', function(value) {
        console.log(value);
      });
    }
  };
});

After:

directive('directiveName', function() {
  return {
    link: function(scope, elm, attr) {
      var observer = function(value) {
        console.log(value);
      };

      attr.$observe('someAttr', observer);
    }
  };
});

Forms, Inputs and ngModel

If an expression is used on ng-pattern (such as ng-pattern="exp") or on the pattern attribute (something like on pattern="{{ exp }}") and the expression itself evaluates to a string then the validator will not parse the string as a literal regular expression object (a value like /abc/i). Instead, the entire string will be created as the regular expression to test against. This means that any expression flags will not be placed on the RegExp object. To get around this limitation, use a regular expression object as the value for the expression.

//before
$scope.exp = '/abc/i';

//after
$scope.exp = /abc/i;

This commit changes the API on NgModelController, both semantically and in terms of adding and renaming methods.

To migrate code that used $cancelUpdate() follow the example below:

Before:

$scope.resetWithCancel = function (e) {
  if (e.keyCode == 27) {
    $scope.myForm.myInput1.$cancelUpdate();
    $scope.myValue = '';
  }
};

After:

$scope.resetWithCancel = function (e) {
  if (e.keyCode == 27) {
    $scope.myForm.myInput1.$rollbackViewValue();
    $scope.myValue = '';
  }
}

Scopes and Digests ($scope)

Server Requests ($http, $resource)

Previously, it was possible to register a response interceptor like so:

// register the interceptor as a service
$provide.factory('myHttpInterceptor', function($q, dependency1, dependency2) {
  return function(promise) {
    return promise.then(function(response) {
      // do something on success
      return response;
    }, function(response) {
      // do something on error
      if (canRecover(response)) {
        return responseOrNewPromise
      }
      return $q.reject(response);
    });
  }
});

$httpProvider.responseInterceptors.push('myHttpInterceptor');

Now, one must use the newer API introduced in v1.1.4 (4ae46814), like so:

$provide.factory('myHttpInterceptor', function($q) {
  return {
    response: function(response) {
      // do something on success
      return response;
    },
    responseError: function(response) {
      // do something on error
      if (canRecover(response)) {
        return responseOrNewPromise
      }
      return $q.reject(response);
    }
  };
});

$httpProvider.interceptors.push('myHttpInterceptor');

More details on the new interceptors API (which has been around as of v1.1.4) can be found at interceptors

Modules and Injector ($inject)

Previously, config blocks would be able to control behaviour of provider registration, due to being invoked prior to provider registration. Now, provider registration always occurs prior to configuration for a given module, and therefore config blocks are not able to have any control over a providers registration.

Example:

Previously, the following:

angular.module('foo', [])
.provider('$rootProvider', function() {
  this.$get = function() { ... }
})
.config(function($rootProvider) {
  $rootProvider.dependentMode = "B";
})
.provider('$dependentProvider', function($rootProvider) {
   if ($rootProvider.dependentMode === "A") {
     this.$get = function() {
      // Special mode!
     }
   } else {
     this.$get = function() {
       // something else
     }
  }
});

would have "worked", meaning behaviour of the config block between the registration of "$rootProvider" and "$dependentProvider" would have actually accomplished something and changed the behaviour of the app. This is no longer possible within a single module.

Animation (ngAnimate)

To update existing code, change all instances of $animate.enter() or $animate.move() from:

$animate.enter(element, parent);

to:

$animate.enter(element, parent, angular.element(parent[0].lastChild));

Before:

.animated.my-class-add {
  opacity:0;
  transition:0.5s linear all;
}
.animated.my-class-add.my-class-add-active {
  opacity:1;
}

After:

.animated.my-class-add {
  transition:0s linear all;
  opacity:0;
}
.animated.my-class-add.my-class-add-active {
  transition:0.5s linear all;
  opacity:1;
}

Please view the documentation for ngAnimate for more info.

Testing

by.binding(descriptor) no longer allows using the surrounding interpolation markers in the descriptor (the default interpolation markers are {{}}). Previously, these were optional.

Before:

var el = element(by.binding('{{foo}}'));

After:

var el = element(by.binding('foo'));

Prefixes ng_ and x-ng- are no longer allowed for models. Use ng-model.

by.repeater cannot find elements by row and column which are not children of the row. For example, if your template is

<div ng-repeat="foo in foos">{{foo.name}}</div>

Before:

var el = element(by.repeater('foo in foos').row(2).column('foo.name'))

After:

You may either enclose {{foo.name}} in a child element

<div ng-repeat="foo in foos"><span>{{foo.name}}</span></div>

or simply use:

var el = element(by.repeater('foo in foos').row(2))

Internet Explorer 8

Migrating from 1.0 to 1.2

Note: AngularJS versions 1.1.x are considered "experimental" with breaking changes between minor releases. Version 1.2 is the result of several versions on the 1.1 branch, and has a stable API.

If you have an application on 1.1 and want to migrate it to 1.2, everything in the guide below should still apply, but you may want to consult the changelog as well.

ngRoute has been moved into its own module

Just like ngResource, ngRoute is now its own module.

Applications that use $route, ngView, and/or $routeParams will now need to load an angular-route.js file and have their application's module dependency on the ngRoute module.

Before:

<script src="angular.js"></script>

var myApp = angular.module('myApp', ['someOtherModule']);

After:

<script src="angular.js"></script>
<script src="angular-route.js"></script>

var myApp = angular.module('myApp', ['ngRoute', 'someOtherModule']);

See 5599b55b.

Templates no longer automatically unwrap promises

$parse and templates in general will no longer automatically unwrap promises.

Before:

$scope.foo = $http({method: 'GET', url: '/someUrl'});

<p>{{foo}}</p>

After:

$http({method: 'GET', url: '/someUrl'})
.success(function(data) {
  $scope.foo = data;
});

<p>{{foo}}</p>

This feature has been deprecated. If absolutely needed, it can be reenabled for now via the $parseProvider.unwrapPromises(true) API.

See 5dc35b52, b6a37d11.

Syntax for named wildcard parameters changed in $route

To migrate the code, follow the example below. Here, *highlight becomes :highlight*

Before:

$routeProvider.when('/Book1/:book/Chapter/:chapter/*highlight/edit',
{controller: noop, templateUrl: 'Chapter.html'});

After:

$routeProvider.when('/Book1/:book/Chapter/:chapter/:highlight*/edit',
{controller: noop, templateUrl: 'Chapter.html'});

See 04cebcc1.

You can only bind one expression to *[src], *[ng-src] or action

With the exception of <a> and <img> elements, you cannot bind more than one expression to the src or action attribute of elements.

This is one of several improvements to security introduces by Angular 1.2.

Concatenating expressions makes it hard to understand whether some combination of concatenated values are unsafe to use and potentially subject to XSS vulnerabilities. To simplify the task of auditing for XSS issues, we now require that a single expression be used for *[src/ng-src] bindings such as bindings for iframe[src], object[src], etc. In addition, this requirement is enforced for form tags with action attributes.

Examples
<img src="{{a}}/{{b}}"> ok
<iframe src="{{a}}/{{b}}"></iframe> bad
<iframe src="{{a}}"></iframe> ok

To migrate your code, you can combine multiple expressions using a method attached to your scope.

Before:

scope.baseUrl = 'page';
scope.a = 1;
scope.b = 2;

<!-- Are a and b properly escaped here? Is baseUrl controlled by user? -->
<iframe src="{{baseUrl}}?a={{a}&b={{b}}">

After:

var baseUrl = "page";
scope.getIframeSrc = function() {

  // One should think about their particular case and sanitize accordingly
  var qs = ["a", "b"].map(function(value, name) {
      return encodeURIComponent(name) + "=" +
             encodeURIComponent(value);
    }).join("&");

  // `baseUrl` isn't exposed to a user's control, so we don't have to worry about escaping it.
  return baseUrl + "?" + qs;
};

<iframe src="{{getIframeSrc()}}">

See 38deedd6.

Interpolations inside DOM event handlers are now disallowed

DOM event handlers execute arbitrary Javascript code. Using an interpolation for such handlers means that the interpolated value is a JS string that is evaluated. Storing or generating such strings is error prone and leads to XSS vulnerabilities. On the other hand, ngClick and other Angular specific event handlers evaluate Angular expressions in non-window (Scope) context which makes them much safer.

To migrate the code follow the example below:

Before:

JS:   scope.foo = 'alert(1)';
HTML: <div onclick="{{foo}}">

After:

JS:   scope.foo = function() { alert(1); }
HTML: <div ng-click="foo()">

See 39841f2e.

Directives cannot end with -start or -end

This change was necessary to enable multi-element directives. The best fix is to rename existing directives so that they don't end with these suffixes.

See e46100f7.

In $q, promise.always has been renamed promise.finally

The reason for this change is to align $q with the Q promise library, despite the fact that this makes it a bit more difficult to use with non-ES5 browsers, like IE8.

finally also goes well together with the catch API that was added to $q recently and is part of the DOM promises standard.

To migrate the code follow the example below.

Before:

$http.get('/foo').always(doSomething);

After:

$http.get('/foo').finally(doSomething);

Or for IE8-compatible code:

$http.get('/foo')['finally'](doSomething);

See f078762d.

ngMobile is now ngTouch

Many touch-enabled devices are not mobile devices, so we decided to rename this module to better reflect its concerns.

To migrate, replace all references to ngMobile with ngTouch and angular-mobile.js with angular-touch.js.

See 94ec84e7.

resource.$then has been removed

Resource instances do not have a $then function anymore. Use the $promise.then instead.

Before:

Resource.query().$then(callback);

After:

Resource.query().$promise.then(callback);

See 05772e15.

Resource methods return the promise

Methods of a resource instance return the promise rather than the instance itself.

Before:

resource.$save().chaining = true;

After:

resource.$save();
resource.chaining = true;

See 05772e15.

Resource promises are resolved with the resource instance

On success, the resource promise is resolved with the resource instance rather than HTTP response object.

Use interceptor API to access the HTTP response object.

Before:

Resource.query().$then(function(response) {...});

After:

var Resource = $resource('/url', {}, {
  get: {
    method: 'get',
    interceptor: {
      response: function(response) {
        // expose response
        return response;
      }
    }
  }
});

See 05772e15.

$location.search supports multiple keys

$location.search now supports multiple keys with the same value provided that the values are stored in an array.

Before this change:

This was deemed buggy behavior. If your server relied on this behavior then either the server should be fixed, or a simple serialization of the array should be done on the client before passing it to $location.

See 80739409.

ngBindHtmlUnsafe has been removed and replaced by ngBindHtml

ngBindHtml provides ngBindHtmlUnsafe like behavior (evaluate an expression and innerHTML the result into the DOM) when bound to the result of $sce.trustAsHtml(string). When bound to a plain string, the string is sanitized via $sanitize before being innerHTML'd. If the $sanitize service isn't available (ngSanitize module is not loaded) and the bound expression evaluates to a value that is not trusted an exception is thrown.

When using this directive you can either include ngSanitize in your module's dependencies (See the example at the ngBindHtml reference) or use the $sce service to set the value as trusted.

See dae69473.

Form names that are expressions are evaluated

If you have form names that will evaluate as an expression:

<form name="ctrl.form">

And if you are accessing the form from your controller:

Before:

function($scope) {
  $scope['ctrl.form'] // form controller instance
}

After:

function($scope) {
  $scope.ctrl.form // form controller instance
}

This makes it possible to access a form from a controller using the new "controller as" syntax. Supporting the previous behavior offers no benefit.

See 8ea802a1.

hasOwnProperty disallowed as an input name

Inputs with name equal to hasOwnProperty are not allowed inside form or ngForm directives.

Before, inputs whose name was "hasOwnProperty" were quietly ignored and not added to the scope. Now a badname exception is thrown. Using "hasOwnProperty" for an input name would be very unusual and bad practice. To migrate, change your input name.

See 7a586e5c.

The order of postLink fn is now mirror opposite of the order in which corresponding preLinking and compile functions execute.

Previously the compile/link fns executed in order, sorted by priority:

# Step Old Sort Order New Sort Order
1 Compile Fns High → Low
2 Compile child nodes
3 PreLink Fns High → Low
4 Link child nodes
5 PostLink Fns High → Low Low → High

"High → Low" here refers to the priority option of a directive.

Very few directives in practice rely on the order of postLinking functions (unlike on the order of compile functions), so in the rare case of this change affecting an existing directive, it might be necessary to convert it to a preLinking function or give it negative priority.

You can look at the diff of this commit to see how an internal attribute interpolation directive was adjusted.

See 31f190d4.

Directive priority

the priority of ngRepeat, ngSwitchWhen, ngIf, ngInclude and ngView has changed. This could affect directives that explicitly specify their priority.

In order to make ngRepeat, ngSwitchWhen, ngIf, ngInclude and ngView work together in all common scenarios their directives are being adjusted to achieve the following precedence:

Directive Old Priority New Priority
ngRepeat 1000 1000
ngSwitchWhen 500 800
ngIf 1000 600
ngInclude 1000 400
ngView 1000 400

See b7af76b4.

ngScenario

browserTrigger now uses an eventData object instead of direct parameters for mouse events. To migrate, place the keys,x and y parameters inside of an object and place that as the third parameter for the browserTrigger function.

See 28f56a38.

ngInclude and ngView replace its entire element on update

Previously ngInclude and ngView only updated its element's content. Now these directives will recreate the element every time a new content is included.

This ensures that a single rootElement for all the included contents always exists, which makes definition of css styles for animations much easier.

See 7d69d52a, aa2133ad.

URLs are now sanitized against a whitelist

A whitelist configured via $compileProvider can be used to configure what URLs are considered safe. By default all common protocol prefixes are whitelisted including data: URIs with mime types image/*. This change shouldn't impact apps that don't contain malicious image links.

See 1adf29af, 3e39ac7e.

Isolate scope only exposed to directives with scope property

If you declare a scope option on a directive, that directive will have an isolate scope. In Angular 1.0, if a directive with an isolate scope is used on an element, all directives on that same element have access to the same isolate scope. For example, say we have the following directives:

// This directive declares an isolate scope.
.directive('isolateScope', function() {
  return {
    scope: {},
    link: function($scope) {
      console.log('one = ' + $scope.$id);
    }
  };
})

// This directive does not.
.directive('nonIsolateScope', function() {
  return {
    link: function($scope) {
      console.log('two = ' + $scope.$id);
    }
  };
});

Now what happens if we use both directives on the same element?

<div isolate-scope non-isolate-scope></div>

In Angular 1.0, the nonIsolateScope directive will have access to the isolateScope directive’s scope. The log statements will print the same id, because the scope is the same. But in Angular 1.2, the nonIsolateScope will not use the same scope as isolateScope. Instead, it will inherit the parent scope. The log statements will print different id’s.

If your code depends on the Angular 1.0 behavior (non-isolate directive needs to access state from within the isolate scope), change the isolate directive to use scope locals to pass these explicitly:

Before

<input ng-model="$parent.value" ng-isolate>

.directive('ngIsolate', function() {
  return {
    scope: {},
    template: '{{value}}'
  };
});

After

<input ng-model="value" ng-isolate>

.directive('ngIsolate', function() {
  return {
    scope: {value: '=ngModel'},
    template: '{{value}}
  };
});

See 909cabd3, #1924 and #2500.

Change to interpolation priority

Previously, the interpolation priority was -100 in 1.2.0-rc.2, and 100 before 1.2.0-rc.2. Before this change the binding was setup in the post-linking phase.

Now the attribute interpolation (binding) executes as a directive with priority 100 and the binding is set up in the pre-linking phase.

See 79223eae, #4525, #4528, and #4649

Underscore-prefixed/suffixed properties are non-bindable

Reverted: This breaking change has been reverted in 1.2.1, and so can be ignored if you're using version 1.2.1 or higher

This change introduces the notion of "private" properties (properties whose names begin and/or end with an underscore) on the scope chain. These properties will not be available to Angular expressions (i.e. {{ }} interpolation in templates and strings passed to $parse) They are freely available to JavaScript code (as before).

Motivation

Angular expressions execute in a limited context. They do not have direct access to the global scope, window, document or the Function constructor. However, they have direct access to names/properties on the scope chain. It has been a long standing best practice to keep sensitive APIs outside of the scope chain (in a closure or your controller.) That's easier said than done for two reasons:

  1. JavaScript does not have a notion of private properties so if you need someone on the scope chain for JavaScript use, you also expose it to Angular expressions
  2. The new controller as syntax that's now in increased usage exposes the entire controller on the scope chain greatly increasing the exposed surface.

Though Angular expressions are written and controlled by the developer, they:

  1. Typically deal with user input
  2. Don't get the kind of test coverage that JavaScript code would

This commit provides a way, via a naming convention, to allow restricting properties from controllers/scopes. This means Angular expressions can access only those properties that are actually needed by the expressions.

See 3d6a89e8.

You cannot bind to select[multiple]

Switching between select[single] and select[multiple] has always been odd due to browser quirks. This feature never worked with two-way data-binding so it's not expected that anyone is using it.

If you are interested in properly adding this feature, please submit a pull request on Github.

See d87fa004.

Uncommon region-specific local files were removed from i18n

AngularJS uses the Google Closure library's locale files. The following locales were removed from Closure, so Angular is not able to continue to support them:

chr, cy, el-polyton, en-zz, fr-rw, fr-sn, fr-td, fr-tg, haw, it-ch, ln-cg, mo, ms-bn, nl-aw, nl-be, pt-ao, pt-gw, pt-mz, pt-st, ro-md, ru-md, ru-ua, sr-cyrl-ba, sr-cyrl-me, sr-cyrl, sr-latn-ba, sr-latn-me, sr-latn, sr-rs, sv-fi, sw-ke, ta-lk, tl-ph, ur-in, zh-hans-hk, zh-hans-mo, zh-hans-sg, zh-hans, zh-hant-hk, zh-hant-mo, zh-hant-tw, zh-hant

Although these locales were removed from the official AngularJS repository, you can continue to load and use your copy of the locale file provided that you maintain it yourself.

See 6382e21f.

Services can now return functions

Previously, the service constructor only returned objects regardless of whether a function was returned.

Now, $injector.instantiate (and thus $provide.service) behaves the same as the native new operator and allows functions to be returned as a service.

If using a JavaScript preprocessor it's quite possible when upgrading that services could start behaving incorrectly. Make sure your services return the correct type wanted.

Coffeescript example

myApp.service 'applicationSrvc', ->
@something = "value"
@someFunct = ->
  "something else"

pre 1.2 this service would return the whole object as the service.

post 1.2 this service returns someFunct as the value of the service

you would need to change this services to

myApp.service 'applicationSrvc', ->
@something = "value"
@someFunct = ->
  "something else"
return

to continue to return the complete instance.

See c22adbf1.