AngularJS DRY controller structure

angularjs, controller, dry, restangular

Solution

DRY should be followed purposefully, not zealously. Your code is fine, the controllers are doing what they are supposed to be doing: connecting different pieces of the app. That said, you can easily combine repeated code in a factory method that returns a function reference.

For example,

myApp.factory('calendarScopeDecorator', function(CalendarService, Restangular, $filter) {
  return function($scope, section) {
    $scope.todos = [];
    $scope.activeData = CalendarService.activeData;
    Restangular.all(section+"/").getList().then(function(data){
      $scope.all_data = data;
      $scope.filtered_data = $filter("calendaractive")(data);
    });
    $scope.$watch("activeData", function(){
      $scope.todos = $filter("calendaractive")($scope.all_data);
    }, true);
  }
});

And then incorporate this into your controller:

myApp.controller("DiaryCtrl", function($scope, calendarScopeDecorator){
  calendarScopeDecorator($scope, 'diary');
});

Problem

The code below represents a situation where the same code pattern repeats in every controller which handles data from the server. After a long research and irc talk at #angularjs I still cannot figure how to abstract that code, inline comments explain the situations: ``` myApp.controller("TodoCtrl", function($scope, Restangular, CalendarService, $filter){ var all_todos = []; $scope.todos = []; Restangular.all("vtodo/").getList().then(function(data){ all_todos = data; $scope.todos = $filter("calendaractive")(all_todos); }); //I can see myself repeating this line in every //controller dealing with data which somehow relates //and is possibly filtered by CalendarService: $scope.activeData = CalendarService.activeData; //also this line, which triggers refiltering when //CalendarService is repeating within other controllers $scope.$watch("activeData", function(){ $scope.todos = $filter("calendaractive")(all_todos); }, true); }); //example. another controller, different data, same relation with calendar? myApp.controller("DiaryCtrl", function($scope, Restangular, CalendarService, $filter){ //this all_object and object seems repetitive, //isn't there another way to do it? so I can keep it DRY? var all_todos = []; $scope.todos = []; Restangular.all("diary/").getList().then(function(data){ all_diaries = data; $scope.diaries = $filter("calendaractive")(all_diaries); }); $scope.activeData = CalendarService.activeData; $scope.$watch("activeData", function(){ $scope.todos = $filter("calendaractive")(all_diaries); }, true); }); ```

Original source