I recently spent over 4 hours before figuring out why my ng-model directive used in combination with ng-options was not correctly binding to the property within my controller. The <select> element was being properly initialized - receiving a value from the controller (parent) scope. But the child scope was not correctly updating the parent scope. After checking out the following questions and plunkers, I was able to develop a "work around" for this issue:
Helpful stackoverflow question 1
Helpful stackoverflow question 2
I found that the property I was binding to in my <select> element was binding to a property of the same name within a child scope of the controller - therefore not the value was not reflected as expected in the controller's scope. After changing
<select ng-options="asset as asset.Name for asset in allAssets" ng-model="selectedAsset" ng-change="lookupAssetPermissions()"></select>
to
<select ng-options="asset as asset.Name for asset in allAssets" ng-model="$parent.selectedAsset" ng-change="lookupAssetPermissions()"></select>
The value in selectedAsset was correctly binding to the property in the controller's scope (as seen in the ng-change event handler). The entire context of my element is the following:
<!---outer div has controller level scope----->
<div>
<!---inner div creates child scope with ng-if----->
<div ng-if="true condition here">
<!---select statement from above----->
<select ng-model="$parent.selectedAsset">...</select>
</div>
</div>
Do I have any other options in this scenario other than purposefully binding to the parent scope? If I had multiple child scopes (nested ng-if statements), would I need to alter the ng-model to bind to $parent.$parent.$parent....selectedAsset in order to update the value in my controllers scope? Are there any "best practices" on this topic?