A ternary in templates

Update: Angular 1.1.5 added a ternary operator, so now we can simply write

<li ng-class="$first ? 'firstRow' : 'nonFirstRow'">

---

If you are using an earlier version of Angular, your two choices are:

1. (condition && result_if_true || !condition && result_if_false)
2. {true: 'result_if_true', false: 'result_if_false'}[condition]

item 2. above creates an object with two properties. The array syntax is used to select either the property with name true or the property with name false, and return the associated value.

E.g.,

<li class="{{{true: 'myClass1 myClass2', false: ''}[$first]}}">...</li>
 or
<li ng-class="{true: 'myClass1 myClass2', false: ''}[$first]">...</li>

$first is set to true inside an ng-repeat for the first element, so the above would apply class 'myClass1' and 'myClass2' only the first time through the loop.

With ng-class there is an easier way though: ng-class takes an expression that must evaluate to one of the following:

1. a string of space-delimited class names
2. an array of class names
3. a map/object of class names to boolean values.

An example of 1) was given above. Here is an example of 3, which I think reads much better:

 <li ng-class="{myClass: $first, anotherClass: $index == 2}">...</li>

The first time through an ng-repeat loop, class myClass is added. The 3rd time through ($index starts at 0), class anotherClass is added.

ng-style takes an expression that must evaluate to a map/object of CSS style names to CSS values. E.g.,

 <li ng-style="{true: {color: 'red'}, false: {}}[$first]">...</li>

Update: Angular 1.1.5 added a ternary operator, this answer is correct only to versions preceding 1.1.5. For 1.1.5 and later, see the currently accepted answer.

Before Angular 1.1.5:

The form of a ternary in angularjs is:

((condition) && (answer if true) || (answer if false))

An example would be:

<ul class="nav">
    <li>
        <a   href="#/page1" style="{{$location.path()=='/page2' && 'color:#fff;' || 'color:#000;'}}">Goals</a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a   href="#/page2" style="{{$location.path()=='/page2' && 'color:#fff;' || 'color:#000;'}}">Groups</a>
    </li>
</ul>

or:

 <li  ng-disabled="currentPage == 0" ng-click="currentPage=0"  class="{{(currentPage == 0) && 'disabled' || ''}}"><a> << </a></li>

By now we all found out version 1.1.5 comes with a proper ternary in the $parse function so just use this answer as an example of filters:

angular.module('myApp.filters', [])

  .filter('conditional', function() {
    return function(condition, ifTrue, ifFalse) {
      return condition ? ifTrue : ifFalse;
    };
  });

And then use it as

<i ng-class="checked | conditional:'icon-check':'icon-check-empty'"></i>

While you can use the condition && if-true-part || if-false-part-syntax in older versions of angular, the usual ternary operator condition ? true-part : false-part is available in Angular 1.1.5 and later.

There it is : ternary operator got added to angular parser in 1.1.5! see the changelog

Here is a fiddle showing new ternary operator used in ng-class directive.

ng-class="boolForTernary ? 'blue' : 'red'"