onChange not working on arrays with simple values

[scotttrinh]

I have a bunch of form fields of various types, including fixed-size arrays (tuples). I have to send the changes to a separate service for syncing, and until now, I've just been sending the whole object with a scope watch. This has worked, but I'm trying to refactor to only send the changed values, rather than the whole object. I've come up with a generic onChange handler that will handle normal fields, and if I attach them manually to the form definition, it seems to work. The issue is with arrays. How/where do I attach these onChange handlers so that if it gets called for all of the array values? I would be content with a change handler on the array itself that just gave me the new value of the whole array, if that's simpler.

[nicklasb]

Isn't ASFs own onChange triggered on arrays?

[scotttrinh]

It doesn't seem to be. Let me see if I can make a minimal plunker.

[scotttrinh]

Plunker here

[nicklasb]

Is this still a problem?

[scotttrinh]

Yes, as evidenced in the plunker. console.log fires when you change the string, but not when you change the array's value. That makes sense, honestly, since you're not changing the identity of the array, just the values, but I'm trying to solve this particular problem and looking for a way to do so.

[Anthropic]

@scotttrinh thanks for the update, good plunker thanks, I've tagged issue appropriately, it seems simple arrays are not firing as you demonstrated.

The issue revolves around the onChange handling code testing for form.onChange

  if (form && form.onChange) {
    ctrl.$viewChangeListeners.push(function() {
      if (angular.isFunction(form.onChange)) {
        form.onChange(ctrl.$modelValue, form);
      } else {
        scope.evalExpr(form.onChange, {'modelValue': ctrl.$modelValue, form: form});
      }
    });
  }

But that doesn't work when the form item is the array item as there is no onChange attached to it, it needs to look through the tree and find any parent onChange events and attach them as well. But that's currently not as easy as I'd like, which may be better with the split out core.

I am curious to know if the new core will fix this, if not I will look into it if no PR is created by then.

[scotttrinh]

@Anthropic thanks for looking into it. I noticed that same bit of code when I was troubleshooting, which is what caused me to open this issue to see if there was a more "correct" way other people already use.