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AngularJS Routing Example - ngRoute, $routeProvider

Published on August 3, 2022
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By Meghna Gangwar

AngularJS Routing Example - ngRoute, $routeProvider

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Today we will look into AngularJS Routing example using ngRoute module and $routeProvider. Earlier we looked into AngularJS Modules and AngularJS Controllers.

Routing in AngularJS

angularjs routing example, ngRoute, $routeProvider Routing in AngularJS is one of the core feature. In this AngularJS routing example, we will build a small single page application with multiple views to show you how routing in AngularJS works.

ngRoute

AngularJS ngRoute module provides routing, deep linking services and directives for angular applications. We have to download angular-route.js script that contains the ngRoute module from AngularJS official website to use the routing feature. You can also use the CDN in your application to include this file. In this tutorial, We are going to use the Google CDN. https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.28//angular-route.min.js If you are bundling this file into your application, then you can add it to your page with below code.

<script src="angular-route.js">

If you want to include it from Google CDN, then use below code.

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.28//angular-route.min.js"></script>

Then load the ngRoute module in your AngularJS application by adding it as a dependent module as shown below.

angular.module('appName', ['ngRoute']);

ngView

ngView directive is used to display the HTML templates or views in the specified routes. Every time the current route changes, the included view changes with it according to the configuration of the $route service.

$routeProvider

$routeProvider is used to configure the routes. We use the ngRoute config() to configure the $routeProvider. The config() takes a function which takes the $routeProvider as parameter and the routing configuration goes inside the function. $routeProvider has a simple API, accepting either the when() or otherwise() method.

AngularJS Routing Syntax

The following syntax is used to configure the routes in AngularJS.

var app = angular.module("appName", ['ngRoute']);

app.config(function($routeProvider) {
	$routeProvider
		.when('/view1', {
			templateUrl: 'view1.html',
			controller: 'FirstController'
		})
		.when('/view2', {
			templateUrl: 'view2.html',
			controller: 'SecondController'
		})
		.otherwise({
			redirectTo: '/view1'
		});
});

when() method takes a pathand a route as parameters. path is a part of the URL after the # symbol. route contains two properties - templateUrl and controller. templateUrl property defines which HTML template AngularJS should load and display inside the div with the ngView directive. controller property defines which controllers should be used with the HTML template. When the application is loaded, path is matched against the part of the URL after the # symbol. If no route paths matches the given URL the browser will be redirected to the path specified in the otherwise() function.

AngularJS Routing Example

Now let’s go through a simple example to understand the AngularJS rounting. At first, we will define a module, some routes, create controllers and create multiple views. Finally, we will create the shell page of our application to hold the multiple views.

  1. Create a module named mainApp and load ngRoute as a dependent module.
  2. Configure the routes using $routeProvider.
  3. We use two paths in the example, /home and /viewStudents.
  4. We use only a single controller in this example, StudentController
  5. StudentController is initialized with an array of students and a message. We will be showing the message in the home page and the students list in viewStudents page.
  6. Save this file as main.js

main.js

var mainApp = angular.module("mainApp", ['ngRoute']);

mainApp.config(function($routeProvider) {
	$routeProvider
		.when('/home', {
			templateUrl: 'home.html',
			controller: 'StudentController'
		})
		.when('/viewStudents', {
			templateUrl: 'viewStudents.html',
			controller: 'StudentController'
		})
		.otherwise({
			redirectTo: '/home'
		});
});

mainApp.controller('StudentController', function($scope) {
	$scope.students = [
		{name: 'Mark Waugh', city:'New York'},
		{name: 'Steve Jonathan', city:'London'},
		{name: 'John Marcus', city:'Paris'}
	];

	$scope.message = "Click on the hyper link to view the students list.";
});

For example, if the URL is like https://www.journaldev.com/index.html#/home, The URL part after the # matches /home, it will load home.html page and if it matches /viewStudents then it will load viewStudents.html in to the shell page. If nothing matches then it will go in otherwise condition and page will be redirected to home.html. Now we can create our views and save as home.html and viewStudents.html files. home.html

<div class="container">
	<h2> Welcome </h2>
	<p>{{message}}</p>
	<a href="#/viewStudents"> View Students List</a>
</div>

This is the default page of our application. In this view, we just print out the message, which we have already initialized in the StudentController. You can also see a link to the viewStudents page. viewStudents.html

<div class="container">
	<h2> View Students </h2>
	Search:
	<br/>
		<input type="text" ng-model="name" />
	<br/>
	<ul>
		<li ng-repeat="student in students | filter:name">{{student.name}} , {{student.city}}</li>
	</ul>

	<a href="#/home"> Back</a>
</div>

In the above view, you can see a list of students with a search option. Finally, follow below steps to complete our AngularJS routing example application.

  • ng-app auto-bootstraps our application mainApp
  • ngView directive is the placeholder of the views - home.html and viewStudents.html
  • Include angular.min.js and angular-route.min.js
  • Include main.js which we have created in the earlier steps.
  • Save the file as index.html

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
	<head lang="en">
	  <meta charset="utf-8">
	  <title>AngularJS Routing</title>

	</head>
	<body>

	  <div ng-app="mainApp">
		<ng-view></ng-view>
	  </div>

	  <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.28/angular.min.js"></script>
	  <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.28//angular-route.min.js"></script>
	  <script type="text/javascript" src="main.js"></script>
	</body>
</html>

That’s all for our AngularJS Routing example. Our application is ready to run.

Run your application

  • Save all the files in the same directory.
  • open index.html from your browser
  • Try our online demo.

AngularJS Routing Example Online Demo

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About the authors
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Meghna Gangwar

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Was this helpful?
 
JournalDev
DigitalOcean Employee
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January 12, 2019

This tutorial helped me a lot in understanding angularJS routes. Thank you.

- Divyansh jain

    JournalDev
    DigitalOcean Employee
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    November 12, 2018

    Thanks For The tutorial, Can we include the html pages by using any include tags in this above mentioned index.html page. because i want to include the different pages in menu bar. but the view of the included pages have be in the same index or menu bar page only… can we do that???

    - Mani Kiran

      JournalDev
      DigitalOcean Employee
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      November 9, 2018

      This is the best tutorial on ngroute i found on the internet… Please do same for UI-Router. With much regards

      - Kenny

        JournalDev
        DigitalOcean Employee
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        December 1, 2017

        when I click on hyperlink View Students list ,it doesn’t work. Please help.

        - seema

          JournalDev
          DigitalOcean Employee
          DigitalOcean Employee badge
          August 7, 2017

          Chrome does not allow this as templates are loaded via AJAX. You can resolve this issue by setting up a simple http server using npm. Go to your project folder in the nodejs command prompt. And type npm install http-server -g This will install http server on your machine. Then start your server using the command http-server Now, run your files using the ip and port on which your server has started and there you go! Routing works in Chrome as well.

          - mohammed sulaiman ben

            JournalDev
            DigitalOcean Employee
            DigitalOcean Employee badge
            July 29, 2017

            I am getting Object not found!

            - sandeep

              JournalDev
              DigitalOcean Employee
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              June 30, 2017

              Thanks very helpfull can you do it for angular2 as well?

              - Mayur

                JournalDev
                DigitalOcean Employee
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                January 29, 2017

                Thanks! for simple and good article

                - Kranthi Kumar

                  JournalDev
                  DigitalOcean Employee
                  DigitalOcean Employee badge
                  September 1, 2016

                  I followed the same steps in eclipse but it does not show in eclipse browser.

                  - neeraj kumar

                    JournalDev
                    DigitalOcean Employee
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                    July 14, 2016

                    Thanks a lot Jobin, Your tutorial was a great help for me!

                    - mrad

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