How to pass HTML to angular directive?

Question

I am trying to create an angular directive with a template, but I also don't want to lose the HTML inside of the div. For example, here is how I would like to call my directive from HTML:

<div my-dir>
  <div class="contents-i-want-to-keep"></div>
</div>

Then, there is my directive:

app.directive('myDir', [ '$compile', function($compile) {
return {
    restrict: 'E',
    link: function(scope, iElement, iAttrs){
        // assigning things from iAttrs to scope goes here
    },
    scope: '@',
    replace: false,
    templateUrl: 'myDir.html'
};
}]);

and then there is myDir.html, where I define a new element:

<div class="example" style="background: blue; height: 30px; width: 30px"></div>

Even when I set replace to false, I lose the inner contents-i-want-to-keep div - my understanding of the angular docs was that this would be appended after my template. Is there some way to preserve this (possibly through my linking function?) so that the result will be

<div class="example" style="background: blue; height: 30px; width: 30px">
     <div class="contents-i-want-to-keep"></div>
</div>

Thanks!

Solution

You'll need to use ng-transclude, add transclude: true in your directive options, and add ng-transclude to your template:

<div class="example" style="…" ng-transclude></div>`

This plunkr has an example on how to use ng-transclude with a template, to keep the original dom element.

http://plnkr.co/edit/efyAiTmcKjnhRZMTlNGf

Comments

[MarzSocks]

What from what version of Angular is this compatible with?

[Alan]

@MarzSocks I just verified it's compatible with the latest 1.3.4. Feel free to try the plunkr with the latest angular version and see.

[DarthVanger]

Angular directive documentation says that transclude does something strange with scope: "transclude makes the contents of a directive with this option have access to the scope outside of the directive rather than inside." (from docs.angularjs.org/guide/directive). So, can setting transclude: true have side effects, besides just letting me to use directive's inner html?

[zygimantus]

Does this work in a template? I am getting this error: Error: [ngTransclude:orphan] Illegal use of ngTransclude directive in the template!