Getting and Setting a Factory value/object in AngularJS - angularjs

Question

Part of this is includes the question of whether or not this is possible, but I am trying to make a factory value called currentUser, which will hold a single use from userService. I am trying to figure out how to make this interaction occur.
If my factories are as follows:
app.factory('currentUser', function() {
});
app.factory('userService', function() {
return {
users: [{
name: "John",
password: "12",
email: "test#example.com",
phone: "238-491-2138"
}, {
name: "Austin",
password: "potaoes",
email: "example#gmail.com",
phone: "138-490-1251"
}]
};
});
and I have a controller that does the following, is there a way to put currentuser = userService.users[i];. Or if this is a terrible way of doing it, how might I setup a way to keep track of a "current user"?
$scope.login = function() {
for (var i = 0; i < userService.users.length; i++) {
if (userService.users[i].email.toLowerCase() === $scope.credentials.email.toLowerCase()) {
if (userService.users[i].password === $scope.credentials.password) {
$scope.messageLogin = "Success!";
$timeout(function() {
$timeout(function() {
$location.path("/account");
}, 500)
$scope.loggedIn = true;
$scope.messageLogin = "Redirecting...";
// currentUser == userService.users[i];
}, 500)
} else {
$scope.messageLogin = "Incorrect login details";
}
return;
}
}
$scope.messageLogin = "Username does not exist";
};
Not sure if this is possible due to the fact that the factory seems to always have a return and never a get/set scenario. So if this is a bad use for Factory, how should I go about it?

Answer 1

You have a couple of options. You can make it part of the user service itself:
app.factory('userService', function() {
var currentUser;
return {
getCurrentUser: function() {
return currentUser;
},
setCurrentUser: function(user) {
currentUser = user;
},
users: [{
name: "John",
password: "12",
email: "test#example.com",
phone: "238-491-2138"
}, {
name: "Austin",
password: "potaoes",
email: "example#gmail.com",
phone: "138-490-1251"
}]
};
});
or you can store it in a separate object:
app.factory('currentUser', function() {
var currentUser;
return {
getCurrentUser: function() {
return currentUser;
},
setCurrentUser: function(user) {
currentUser = user;
}
};
});

Answer 2

Services/Factories in AngularJS are singletons, so you should build your application with the expectation that a service will always resolve to the same value.
That being said, your service is just a JavaScript object and its fields/properties are mutable. I don't see anything wrong with adding a field called "current" to your "userService", which is designed to contain a reference to the current user.