How do I set the value property in AngularJS' ng-options?

Question

Here is what seems to be bothering a lot of people (including me).

When using the ng-options directive in AngularJS to fill in the options for a &

Answer 1

Like many said before, if I have data something like this:

countries : [
              {
                 "key": 1,
                 "name": "UAE"
             },
              {
                  "key": 2,
                  "name": "India"
              },
              {
                  "key": 3,
                  "name": "OMAN"
              }
         ]

I would use it like:

In your Controller you need to set an initial value to get rid of the first empty item:

 $scope.selectedCountry = $scope.countries[0];

 // You need to watch changes to get selected value
 $scope.$watchCollection(function() {
   return $scope.selectedCountry
 }, function(newVal, oldVal) {
     if (newVal === oldVal) {
       console.log("nothing has changed " + $scope.selectedCountry)
     } 
     else {
       console.log('new value ' + $scope.selectedCountry)
     }
 }, true)