Restangular in service - angularjs

Question

I have service:
angular.module('app1App')
.service('Fullcontactservice', function Fullcontactservice(Restangular, $http, $q) {
// AngularJS will instantiate a singleton by calling "new" on this function
var self = this;
self.apiKey = "..........."
self.route = "person"
self.getProfile = function(email){
console.log("called")
console.log(email)
Restangular.one("person").get({email: email, apiKey: self.apiKey})
.then(function(response){
console.log(response)
return response
})
}
return self;
});
Controller:
angular.module('app1App')
.controller('FullcontactCtrl', function ($scope, Fullcontactservice) {
$scope.searchFullcontact = function(){
$scope.data = Fullcontactservice.getProfile($scope.email)
}
});
When I call the searchFullcontact(), Restangular calls fullcontact and returns data but that's not pushed to the scope - I understand why. When I use promises, just results to a {} and no data is pushed.
How can I have it do that. I am trying to avoid the .then() function within my controller to keep it being slim because traditionally I had very large controllers.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Restangular has a handy feature allowing you to make this code work:
self.getProfile = function(email){
return Restangular.one("person").get({email: email, apiKey: self.apiKey}).$object
}
$object is effectively a shortcut where Restangular first creates an empty object which is filled with the data from the REST call once it is available. The code working with $scope.data inside your controller must be flexible to handle the initially empty object. This is usually not an issue if you use data inside the template (html) as angular gracefully handles missing (undefined).