Adding ng-change to child elements from linking function of directive - angularjs

Question

I created a directive that should add a ng-change directive dynamically to all child input tags:
myApp.directive('autosave', function ($compile) {
return {
compile: function compile(tElement, tAttrs) {
return function postLink(scope, iElement, iAttrs) {
var shouldRun = scope.$eval(iAttrs.autosave);
if (shouldRun) {
iElement.find(':input[ng-model]').each(function () {
$(this).attr("ng-change", iAttrs.ngSubmit);
});
$compile(iElement.contents())(scope);
console.log("Done");
}
}; //end linking fn
}
};
});
The problem that I have is that the ng-change directive isn't running. I can see it that its added to the DOM element BUT not executing when value changes.
The strange thing is that if I try with ng-click, it does work.
Dont know if this is a bug on ng-change or if I did somehting wrong.
Fiddle is with ng-click (click on the input) http://jsfiddle.net/dimirc/fq52V/
Fiddle is with ng-change (should fire on change) http://jsfiddle.net/dimirc/6E3Sk/
BTW, I can make this work if I move all to compile function, but I need to be able to evaluate the attribute of the directive and I dont have access to directive from compile fn.
Thanks

Answer 1

You make your life harder than it is. you do'nt need to do all the angular compile/eval/etc stuff - at the end angular is javascript : see your modified (and now working) example here :
if (shouldRun) {
iElement.find(':input[ng-model]').on( 'change', function () {
this.form.submit();
});
console.log("Done");
}
http://jsfiddle.net/lgersman/WuW8B/1/
a few notes to your approach :
ng-change maps directly to the javascript change event. so your submit handler will never be called if somebody uses cut/copy/paste on the INPUT elements. the better solution would be to use the "input" event (which catches all modification cases).
native events like change/input etc will be bubbled up to the parent dom elements in the browser. so it would have exactly the same to attach the change listener to the form instead of each input.
if you want to autosave EVERY edit that you will have an unbelievable mass of calls to your submit handler. a better approach would be to slow-down/throttle the submit event delegation (see http://orangevolt.blogspot.de/2013/08/debounced-throttled-model-updates-for.html ).
if you want to autosave EVERY edit you skip your change handler stuff completely and suimply watch the scope for changes (which will happen during angular model updates caused by edits) and everything will be fine :
scope.watch( function() {
eElement[0].submit();
});