AngularJS - $index, $event, $log

$index is a way to show which iteration of a loop you’re in. If we set up an ng-repeat to repeat over the letters in ‘somewords’, like so:

<div ng-app="app">
  <div ng-repeat="item in 'somewords'.split('')">
    {{$index + 1}}. {{item}}
  </div>
</div>

We can see that we get a listing of all the characters in ‘somewords’ with the index next to it.

Now, let’s add an ng-click attribute to the div as “ev = $event” and a binding to ev.pageX. Let’s also set this div’s class to “button” since we’re going to be clicking on it

<div ng-app="app">
  <div
    class="button"
    ng-repeat="item in 'somewords'.split('')"
    ng-click="ev = $event"
    >
    {{$index + 1}}. {{item}}
    {{ev.pageX}}
  </div>
</div>

Now we can click on all of these buttons and whenever we click we get the extra number next to our index and character. This is the x value of where we’re clicking, and this shows that we can access the event that’s happening through $event.

If we want to log this event, we can do so by using $log. In order to use $log without setting up a controller, we can put it on the root scope of our application. We need to set up the run phase of our application and inject $rootScope and $log in order to expose $log to $rootScope

var app = angular.module("app", []);

app.run(function($rootScope, $log){
  $rootScope.$log = $log;
});

Now we’re able to access the $log function anywhere within our app. (Note that you rarely want to put anything on the $rootScope as anything on the $rootScope will be available throughout the app.) Let’s change the ng-click attribute to “$log.debug($event)”

<div ng-app="app">
  <div
    class="button"
    ng-repeat="item in 'somewords'.split('')"
    ng-click="$log.debug($event)"
    >
    {{$index + 1}}. {{item}}
    {{ev.pageX}}
  </div>
</div>

Now we can open up our console and click on any of the buttons and we’ll see that the MouseEvent is being logged to the console. You can turn off the debug level of the logger in the config phase of the app by using $logProvider and calling debugEnabled and passing it false.

var app = angular.module("app", []);

app.config(function($logProvider){
  $logProvider.debugEnabled(false);
});

app.run(function($rootScope, $log){
  $rootScope.$log = $log;
});

Be sure to use proper logging levels in order for debugEnabled to work, as any info or warnings will still be logged.