execute function on page load?

Currently I have an Angular.js page that allows searching and displays results. User clicks on a search result, then clicks back button. I want the search results to be displayed again but I can't work out how to trigger the search to execute. Here's the detail:

  • My Angular.js page is a search page, with a search field and a search button. The user can manually type in a query and press a button and and ajax query is fired and the results are displayed. I update the URL with the search term. That all works fine.
  • User clicks on a result of the search and is taken to a different page - that works fine too.
  • User clicks back button, and goes back to my angular search page, and the correct URL is displayed, including the search term. All works fine.
  • I have bound the search field value to the search term in the URL, so it contains the expected search term. All works fine.

How do I get the search function to execute again without the user having to press the "search button"? If it was jquery then I would execute a function in the documentready function. I can't see the Angular.js equivalent.

On the one hand as @Mark-Rajcok said you can just get away with private inner function:

// at the bottom of your controller
var init = function () {
   // check if there is query in url
   // and fire search in case its value is not empty
};
// and fire it after definition
init();

Also you can take a look at ng-init directive. Implementation will be much like:

// register controller in html
<div data-ng-controller="myCtrl" data-ng-init="init()"></div>

// in controller
$scope.init = function () {
    // check if there is query in url
    // and fire search in case its value is not empty
};

But take care about it as angular documentation implies (since v1.2) to NOT use ng-init for that. However imo it depends on architecture of your app.

I used ng-init when I wanted to pass a value from back-end into angular app:

<div data-ng-controller="myCtrl" data-ng-init="init('%some_backend_value%')"></div>

Try this?

$scope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', function() {
    //call it here
});

You can do this if you want to watch the viewContentLoaded DOM object to change and then do something. using $scope.$on works too but differently especially when you have one page mode on your routing. 

 $scope.$watch('$viewContentLoaded', function(){
    // do something
 });

I could never get $viewContentLoaded to work for me, and ng-init should really only be used in an ng-repeat (according to the documentation), and also calling a function directly in a controller can cause errors if the code relies on an element that hasn't been defined yet.

This is what I do and it works for me:

$scope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess', function () {
  // do something
});

Unless you're using ui-router. Then it's:

$scope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', function () {
  // do something
});

Dimitri's/Mark's solution didn't work for me but using the $timeout function seems to work well to ensure your code only runs after the markup is rendered.

# Your controller, including $timeout

var $scope.init = function(){
 //your code
}

$timeout($scope.init)

Hope it helps.

angular.element(document).ready(function () {

    // your code here

});

When using $routeProvider you can resolve on .state and bootstrap your service. This is to say, you are going to load Controller and View, only after resolve your Service:

ui-routes

...

     .state('nn', {
            url: "/nn",
            templateUrl: "views/home/n.html",
            controller: 'nnCtrl',
            resolve: {
              initialised: function (ourBootstrapService, $q) {

                var deferred = $q.defer();

                ourBootstrapService.init().then(function(initialised) {
                  deferred.resolve(initialised);
                });
                return deferred.promise;
              }
            }
          })
 // other states
...

Service

function ourBootstrapService() {

 function init(){ 
    // this is what we need
 }
}

Another alternative:

var myInit = function () {
    //...
};
angular.element(document).ready(myInit);

(via http://stackoverflow.com/a/30258904/148412)