AngularJS : Prevent error $digest already in progress when calling $scope.$apply()

Question

I'm finding that I need to update my page to my scope manually more and more since building an application in angular.

The only way I know of to do this is to call $apply() from the scope of my controllers and directives. The problem with this is that it keeps throwing an error to the console that reads :

Error: $digest already in progress

Does anyone know how to avoid this error or achieve the same thing but in a different way?

Answer 1

From a recent discussion with the Angular guys on this very topic: For future-proofing reasons, you should not use $$phase

When pressed for the "right" way to do it, the answer is currently

$timeout(function() {
  // anything you want can go here and will safely be run on the next digest.
})

I recently ran into this when writing angular services to wrap the facebook, google, and twitter APIs which, to varying degrees, have callbacks handed in.

Here's an example from within a service. (For the sake of brevity, the rest of the service -- that set up variables, injected $timeout etc. -- has been left off.)

window.gapi.client.load('oauth2', 'v2', function() {
    var request = window.gapi.client.oauth2.userinfo.get();
    request.execute(function(response) {
        // This happens outside of angular land, so wrap it in a timeout 
        // with an implied apply and blammo, we're in action.
        $timeout(function() {
            if(typeof(response['error']) !== 'undefined'){
                // If the google api sent us an error, reject the promise.
                deferred.reject(response);
            }else{
                // Resolve the promise with the whole response if ok.
                deferred.resolve(response);
            }
        });
    });
});

Note that the delay argument for $timeout is optional and will default to 0 if left unset ($timeout calls $browser.defer which defaults to 0 if delay isn't set)

A little non-intuitive, but that's the answer from the guys writing Angular, so it's good enough for me!