AngularJS directive does not update on scope variable changes

Question

I've tried to write a small directive, to wrap its contents with another template file.

This code:

<layout name="Default">My cool content</layout>

Should have this output:

<div class="layoutDefault">My cool content</div>

Because the layout "Default" has this code:

<div class="layoutDefault">{{content}}</div>

Here the code of the directive:

app.directive('layout', function($http, $compile){
return {
    restrict: 'E',
    link: function(scope, element, attributes) {
        var layoutName = (angular.isDefined(attributes.name)) ? attributes.name : 'Default';
        $http.get(scope.constants.pathLayouts + layoutName + '.html')
            .success(function(layout){
                var regexp = /^([\s\S]*?){{content}}([\s\S]*)$/g;
                var result = regexp.exec(layout);

                var templateWithLayout = result[1] + element.html() + result[2];
                element.html($compile(templateWithLayout)(scope));
            });
    }
}

});

My problem:

When I'm using scope variables in template (in layout template or inside of layout tag), eg. {{whatever}} it just work initially. If I update the whatever variable, the directive is not updated anymore. The whole link function will just get triggered once.

I think, that AngularJS does not know, that this directive uses scope variables and therefore it will not be updated. But I have no clue how to fix this behavior.

Answer 1

You should create a bound scope variable and watch its changes:

return {
   restrict: 'E',
   scope: {
     name: '='
   },
   link: function(scope) {
     scope.$watch('name', function() {
        // all the code here...
     });
   }
};