Understanding AngularJS scope life-cycle

29 dec. 2023

Intermediate

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2 min read

Scope data goes through a life cycle when the angular app is loaded into the browser. Understanding the scope life cycle will help you to understand the interaction between scope and other AngularJS components. For a comprehensive understanding of the scope life cycle and its implications on AngularJS components, consider exploring an angular certification course.

The scope data goes through the following life cycle phases:

Creation
This phase initialized the scope. The root scope is created by the $injector when the application is bootstrapped. During template linking, some directives create new child scopes.

A digest loop is also created in this phase that interacts with the browser event loop. This digest loop is responsible to update DOM elements with the changes made to the model as well as executing any registered watcher functions.
Watcher registration
This phase registers watches for values on the scope that are represented in the template. These watches propagate model changes automatically to the DOM elements.

You can also register your own watch functions on a scope value by using the $watch() function.
Model mutation
This phase occurs when data in the scope changes. When you make the changes in your angular app code, the scope function $apply() updates the model and calls the $digest() function to update the DOM elements and registered watches.

When you do the changes to scope inside your angular code like within controllers or services, angular internally call $apply() function for you. But when you do the changes to the scope outside the angular code, you have to call $apply() function explicitly on the scope to force the model and DOM to be updated correctly.
Mutation observation
This phase occurs when the $digest() function is executed by the digest loop at the end of $apply() call. When $digest() function executes, it evaluates all watches for model changes. If a value has been changed, $digest() calls the $watch listener and updates the DOM elements.
Scope destruction
This phase occurs when child scopes are no longer needed and these scopes are removed from the browser’s memory by using $destroy() function. It is the responsibility of the child scope creator to destroy them via scope.$destroy() API.

This stop propagation of $digest calls into the child scopes and allow the memory to be reclaimed by the browser garbage collector.

What do you think?

I hope you will enjoy the AngularJS scopes while developing your app with AngularJS. I would like to have feedback from my blog readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome. For those looking to deepen their understanding and proficiency in AngularJS scopes and related concepts, consider exploring an angular certification.