Calling a parent controller's function in the parent's context - angularjs

Question

I need my parent controller function getDataInParent to get called in the parent's controller's context itself.
Sample:
The child directive is correctly setup like this from within the parent directive template:
<child get-data="parentCtrl.getDataInParent"></child>
And here is a simple mockup of my controller implementations (see comments in getDataInParent):
// *** parent controller
controller('parentController', [...., function(){
var that = this;
that.someData = ...;
that.getDataInParent = function(someArgs){
// Here I need to access "that.someData" and other
// properties/methods of this parent controller. But I can't!
// Because this method doesn't seemed to be called in the context of this controller.
};
};]
// *** child controller
controller('childController', [...., function(){
var that = this;
// Hooked up correctly and am able to call the parent's function like this:
var dataFromParent = $scope.getData().(someArgs);
};]
This seems like a very common scenario that a lot of people would have encountered, so I am hoping there should be a straight forward solution for this in Angular.

Answer 1

You can always create a local scope for a directive & bind the parent function to the local scope using this '&'. Suppose this is your html
<child get-data="parentCtrl.getDataInParent(params)"></child>
This should be your directive code.
angular
.module('SampleApp')
.directive('child', child);
/* #ngInject */
function child() {
var directive = {
restrict: 'E',
templateUrl: 'templateUrl',
scope: {
getData : '&'
},
link: linkFunc,
controller: 'Controller',
controllerAs: 'vm'
};
return directive;
function linkFunc(scope, el, attr, ctrl) {
// Calling parent method here
var dataFromParent = $scope.getData({params: "SomeParams"});
}
}
Working Plunker : https://plnkr.co/edit/4n61WF4JN3eT2QcdnnTw?p=preview