UPDATE
Angular offers now the two scope methods $watchGroup (since 1.3) and $watchCollection. Those have been mentioned by @blazemonger and @kargold.
This should work independent of the types and values:
$scope.$watch('[age,name]', function () { ... }, true);
You have to set the third parameter to true in this case.
The string concatenation 'age + name'
will fail in a case like this:
<button ng-init="age=42;name='foo'" ng-click="age=4;name='2foo'">click</button>
Before the user clicks the button the watched value would be 42foo
(42
+ foo
) and after the click 42foo
(4
+ 2foo
). So the watch function would not be called. So better use an array expression if you cannot ensure, that such a case will not appear.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<link href="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/jasmine/1.3.1/jasmine.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/jasmine/1.3.1/jasmine.js"></script>
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/jasmine/1.3.1/jasmine-html.js"></script>
<script src="http://code.angularjs.org/1.2.0-rc.2/angular.js"></script>
<script src="http://code.angularjs.org/1.2.0-rc.2/angular-mocks.js"></script>
<script>
angular.module('demo', []).controller('MainCtrl', function ($scope) {
$scope.firstWatchFunctionCounter = 0;
$scope.secondWatchFunctionCounter = 0;
$scope.$watch('[age, name]', function () { $scope.firstWatchFunctionCounter++; }, true);
$scope.$watch('age + name', function () { $scope.secondWatchFunctionCounter++; });
});
describe('Demo module', function () {
beforeEach(module('demo'));
describe('MainCtrl', function () {
it('watch function should increment a counter', inject(function ($controller, $rootScope) {
var scope = $rootScope.$new();
scope.age = 42;
scope.name = 'foo';
var ctrl = $controller('MainCtrl', { '$scope': scope });
scope.$digest();
expect(scope.firstWatchFunctionCounter).toBe(1);
expect(scope.secondWatchFunctionCounter).toBe(1);
scope.age = 4;
scope.name = '2foo';
scope.$digest();
expect(scope.firstWatchFunctionCounter).toBe(2);
expect(scope.secondWatchFunctionCounter).toBe(2); // This will fail!
}));
});
});
(function () {
var jasmineEnv = jasmine.getEnv();
var htmlReporter = new jasmine.HtmlReporter();
jasmineEnv.addReporter(htmlReporter);
jasmineEnv.specFilter = function (spec) {
return htmlReporter.specFilter(spec);
};
var currentWindowOnload = window.onload;
window.onload = function() {
if (currentWindowOnload) {
currentWindowOnload();
}
execJasmine();
};
function execJasmine() {
jasmineEnv.execute();
}
})();
</script>
</head>
<body></body>
</html>
http://plnkr.co/edit/2DwCOftQTltWFbEDiDlA?p=preview
PS:
As stated by @reblace in a comment, it is of course possible to access the values:
$scope.$watch('[age,name]', function (newValue, oldValue) {
var newAge = newValue[0];
var newName = newValue[1];
var oldAge = oldValue[0];
var oldName = oldValue[1];
}, true);