It is possible to run javascript in a directive before returning anything, as well as in a directive's compile step before returning anything:
angular.module('foo').directive('fooDirective', [function(){
console.debug('before return');
return {
restrict: 'E',
controller: function($scope){
console.debug('controller');
},
compile: function(scope, elem){
console.debug('compile');
return {
pre: function(scope,elem, attr){
console.debug('pre');
},
post: function(scope,elem,attr){
console.debug('post');
}
}
}
}
}]);
<body ng-app="foo">
<foo-directive></foo-directive>
<foo-directive></foo-directive>
</body>
This produces the following console log order:
before return
compile
compile
controller
pre
post
controller
pre
post
I have several questions about this:
1) Why would I ever want to run code before returning the actual directive object? What would be a usecase?
2) Why would I ever want to run code before returning the pre/post link functions? How is the prelink step different from the compile step? What is a use case?
3) Why does compile run twice in succession when there is two items, while everything else runs iteratively in the same order irrelevantly of number of elements?
You would want to do this so you can have some private method definitions that only your object can use.
You would want to do this if you were utilizing some service precompile to get the data for the directive, and post compile to use the data and do something with it.
No idea
I think there is some weird bubbling going on.
because you only have two instances of your directive.
This is what I see in the console log: