angularjs - Watch controller model value from inside directive

Question

I am trying to have angular watch the $viewValue of a controller from inside a directive.

fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/dkrotts/TfTr5/5/

function foo($scope, $timeout) {
    $scope.bar = "Lorem ipsum";

    $timeout(function() {
        $scope.bar = "Dolor sit amet";
    }, 2000);
}

myApp.directive('myDirective', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        require: '?ngModel',
        link: function (scope, element, attrs, controller) {
            scope.$watch(controller.$viewValue, function() {
                console.log("Changed to " + controller.$viewValue);
            });
        }
    } 
});

As is, the $watch function is not catching the model change done after 2 seconds from inside the controller. What am I missing?

Answer 1

$watch accepts the "name" of the property to watch in the scope, you're asking it to watch the value. Change it to watch attrs.ngModel which returns "bar", now you're watching scope.bar. You can get the value the same way you were or use scope[attrs.ngModel] which is like saying scope["bar"] which again, is the same as scope.bar.

scope.$watch(attrs.ngModel, function(newValue) {
    console.log("Changed to " + newValue);
});

To clarify user271996's comment: scope.$eval is used because you may pass object notation into the ng-model attribute. i.e. ng-model="someObj.someProperty" which won't work because scope["someObj.someProperty"] is not valid. scope.$eval is used to evaluate that string into an actual object so that scope["someObj.someProperty"] becomes scope.someObj.someProperty.