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angular.element

  1. - function in module ng

Wraps a raw DOM element or HTML string as a jQuery element.

If jQuery is available, angular.element is an alias for the jQuery function. If jQuery is not available, angular.element delegates to Angular's built-in subset of jQuery, called "jQuery lite" or jqLite.

jqLite is a tiny, API-compatible subset of jQuery that allows Angular to manipulate the DOM in a cross-browser compatible way. jqLite implements only the most commonly needed functionality with the goal of having a very small footprint.

To use jQuery, simply ensure it is loaded before the angular.js file. You can also use the ngJq directive to specify that jqlite should be used over jQuery, or to use a specific version of jQuery if multiple versions exist on the page.

Note: All element references in Angular are always wrapped with jQuery or jqLite (such as the element argument in a directive's compile / link function). They are never raw DOM references.
Note: Keep in mind that this function will not find elements by tag name / CSS selector. For lookups by tag name, try instead angular.element(document).find(...) or $document.find(), or use the standard DOM APIs, e.g. document.querySelectorAll().

Angular's jqLite

jqLite provides only the following jQuery methods:

jQuery/jqLite Extras

Angular also provides the following additional methods and events to both jQuery and jqLite:

Events

  • $destroy - AngularJS intercepts all jqLite/jQuery's DOM destruction apis and fires this event on all DOM nodes being removed. This can be used to clean up any 3rd party bindings to the DOM element before it is removed.

Methods

  • controller(name) - retrieves the controller of the current element or its parent. By default retrieves controller associated with the ngController directive. If name is provided as camelCase directive name, then the controller for this directive will be retrieved (e.g. 'ngModel').
  • injector() - retrieves the injector of the current element or its parent.
  • scope() - retrieves the scope of the current element or its parent. Requires Debug Data to be enabled.
  • isolateScope() - retrieves an isolate scope if one is attached directly to the current element. This getter should be used only on elements that contain a directive which starts a new isolate scope. Calling scope() on this element always returns the original non-isolate scope. Requires Debug Data to be enabled.
  • inheritedData() - same as data(), but walks up the DOM until a value is found or the top parent element is reached.

Known Issues

You cannot spy on angular.element if you are using Jasmine version 1.x. See https://github.com/angular/angular.js/issues/14251 for more information.

Usage

angular.element(element);

Arguments

Param Type Details
element stringDOMElement

HTML string or DOMElement to be wrapped into jQuery.

Returns

Object

jQuery object.