$compile fails on leading whitespace of template string

[mlynch]

If you have a template with leading whitespace, or any string that does not start with an opening angle bracket (<), $compile will fail inside of the JQLite constructor with a nonsel error: http://docs.angularjs.org/error/jqLite:nosel

The relevant line is here:

angular.js/src/jqLite.js

Line 165 in c785267

if (isString(element) && element.charAt(0) != '<') {

I understand it's hard to infer what the user wants, but there are two issues: that supplied template content needs to be trimmed and this is not specified in the docs, and that the error message is very opaque.

[petebacondarwin]

@mlynch - what version of angular are you using. This doesn't happen here: http://plnkr.co/edit/cJMB1nQ8fORSKZBy8HwI?p=preview

[mlynch]

@petebacondarwin 1.2.0rc2. I added to your plunker which shows the issue. You have to specifically call the $compile service: http://plnkr.co/edit/OHDbIEkdcdKQIVrZZbq7?p=preview

[petebacondarwin]

@mlynch - so this has nothing to do with "templates" per-se. The issue is that $compile effectively calls angular.element(string) if you pass in a string rather than a list of elements.
If you don't load up the full jQuery then we use jqLite, which is a minimal implementation of jQuery, which can't parse the whitespace at the start of the string.
See this http://plnkr.co/edit/t4BPSg10JvAeKrI5uu3I?p=preview
(Try removing the jquery script reference)

[mlynch]

Sure. Just wanted to bring this up in case it's not the desired behavior, since it certainly didn't seem like something that should break.

[pkozlowski-opensource]

This is fixed in 1.2.13 http://plnkr.co/edit/ysQySYUuqJKYSFkKlmJl?p=preview

[raphaelokon]

It is still breaking for me when i have mixed content like

var mixedHTML = "This is a <strong>very strong and bold</strong> element!"
$compile( mixedHTML )( scope ); // <== this breaks with [jqLite:nosel] http://errors.angularjs.org/1.2.18/jqLite/nosel