Angular digest loop walkthrough
$digest and $watch
Implementing two-way-data-binding, to achieve the result from the previous example, could be done with two core functions:
.$digest is called after a user interaction (binding DOM=>variable)
.$watch sets a callback to be called after variable changes (binding variable=>DOM)
note: this is example is a demonstration, not the actual angular code
<input id="input"/>
<span id="span"></span>The two functions we need:
var $watches = [];
function $digest(){
$watches.forEach(function($w){
var val = $w.val();
if($w.prevVal !== val){
$w.callback(val, $w.prevVal);
$w.prevVal = val;
}
})
}
function $watch(val, callback){
$watches.push({val:val, callback:callback, prevVal: val() })
}Now we could now use these functions to hook up a variable to the DOM (angular comes with built-in directives which will do this for you):
var realVar;
//this is usually done by ng-model directive
input1.addEventListener('keyup',function(e){
realVar=e.target.value;
$digest()
}, true);
//this is usually done with {{expressions}} or ng-bind directive
$watch(function(){return realVar},function(val){
span1.innerHTML = val;
});Off-course, the real implementations are more complex, and support parameters such as which element to bind
to, and what variable to use