exposing an object in angularjs directive scope, can't access properties

Question

So, I have the following relatively simple Angularjs directive

app.directive('myDirective', function () {
      return {
          restrict: 'E',
          scope: {
              site: '@',
              index: '@'
          },
          template: '<div>{{site}}</div>',
          replace: true,

      }
  });

And here is where I call the directive in HTML

<div id="eventGraphic" class="span12">
    <my-directive ng-repeat="site in IEvent.sites" site="{{site}}" index="{{$index}}"></my-directive>
</div>

Which, given that each site is an object, produces this output (copied from browser)

{"name":"Hurlburt","_id":"5148bb6b79353be406000005","enclaves":[]}
{"name":"Walker Center","_id":"5148cca5436905781a000005","enclaves":[]}
{"name":"test1","_id":"5148ce94436905781a000006","enclaves":[]}
{"name":"JDIF","_id":"5148cf37436905781a000007","enclaves":[]} 

However, if I change the template in the directive to

 template: '<div>{{site.name}}</div>',

it does not produce any output. This seems like a fairly straightforward use case, any ideas what I could be doing wrong? The desired output would be just the name field in each object.

Solution

You need to use '=' to map the object. '@' implies you're just passing a string value to the new scope.

app.directive('myDirective', function () {
      return {
          restrict: 'E',
          scope: {
              site: '=', //two-way binding
              index: '@' //just passing an attribute as a string.
          },
          template: '<div>{{site}}</div>',
          replace: true,

      }
  });

Then in your markup, don't use a binding in the attribute, just pass the expression:

<div id="eventGraphic" class="span12">
    <!-- below, site="site" is passing the expression (site) to
         the two way binding for your directive's scope,
         whereas index="{{$index}}" is actually evaluating the expression
         ($index) and passing it as a string to the index attribute,
         which is being put directly into the directive's scope as a string -->
    <my-directive ng-repeat="site in IEvent.sites" 
            site="site" 
            index="{{$index}}"></my-directive>
</div>