Setting Up States From a JSON File in AngularJS Applications

Gonzalo Ayuso

Jul. 01, 14 · Interview

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Imagine a this simple angularjs application using angular-ui-router:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Example</title>
    <script src="bower_components/angular/angular.js"></script>
    <script src="bower_components/angular-ui-router/release/angular-ui-router.js"></script>
    <script src="js/app.js"></script>
 
</head>
<body ng-app="App" ng-controller="MainController">
 
<div ui-view></div>
</body>
</html>

angular.module('App', ['ui.router'])
 
    .config(function ($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider, routerProvider) {
        $stateProvider
            .state('home', {
                url: '/home',
                templateUrl: 'templates/home.html'
            });
 
        $urlRouterProvider.otherwise('/home');
    })
 
    .controller('MainController', function ($scope, router) {
        $scope.reload = function() {
            router.setUpRoutes();
        };
    })
;

We’ve defined only one state called “home”. If we need more states we just add more within config() function. In this post we’re going to try to add more states from a json file instead of hardcode the states within the code.

Let’s create our json file with the states definitions:

{
    "xxx": {
        "url": "/xxx",
        "templateUrl": "templates/xxx.html"
    },
 
    "yyy": {
        "url": "/yyy",
        "templateUrl": "templates/yyy.html"
    },
 
    "zzz": {
        "url": "/zzz",
        "templateUrl": "templates/zzz.html"
    }
}

Now our application looks like this:

angular.module('App', ['ui.router', 'Routing'])
 
    .config(function ($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider, routerProvider) {
        $stateProvider
            .state('home', {
                url: '/home',
                templateUrl: 'templates/home.html'
            });
 
        $urlRouterProvider.otherwise('/home');
 
        routerProvider.setCollectionUrl('js/routeCollection.json');
    })
 
    .controller('MainController', function ($scope, router) {
        $scope.reload = function() {
            router.setUpRoutes();
        };
    })
;

As we can see now we’re using ‘Routing’

angular.module('Routing', ['ui.router'])
    .provider('router', function ($stateProvider) {
 
        var urlCollection;
 
        this.$get = function ($http, $state) {
            return {
                setUpRoutes: function () {
                    $http.get(urlCollection).success(function (collection) {
                        for (var routeName in collection) {
                            if (!$state.get(routeName)) {
                                $stateProvider.state(routeName, collection[routeName]);
                            }
                        }
                    });
                }
            }
        };
 
        this.setCollectionUrl = function (url) {
            urlCollection = url;
        }
    })
 
    .run(function (router) {
        router.setUpRoutes();
    });

‘Routing’ provides us a provider called ‘router’ that fetch the json file and build the states.

That’s a proof of concept.
There’s a couple of problems (please tell me if you know how to solve them):

As far as we’re loading states from a http connection, angular application don’t have all the states when it starts, so we need to create at least the first state with the “old style”
We can reload states with the application running. We also can add new states, but we cannot modify the existing ones.

you can see the one example project within my github account.

application JSON AngularJS

Published at DZone with permission of Gonzalo Ayuso, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

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Setting Up States From a JSON File in AngularJS Applications

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