javascript - Using a Relative Path for a Service Call in AngularJS

Question

I have the following code, which was working fine until I deployed to a test server:

$scope.getUserList = function (userName) {
    $http({
        method: "get",
        url: "GetUserList",
        params: { userName: userName }
    }).
        success(function (data) {
            $scope.users = data;
        }).
        error(function () {
            alert("Error getting users.");

The problem is that I deployed to a virtual directory, and the call below is attempting to hit GetUserList from the server root. This makes sense, and I know a number of ways to fix it.

What I would like to know is the right way to reference the service URL in a way that is portable and maintainable in Angular.

Answer 1

I'd suggest using an HTML base tag in the head, and coding all paths relative to this. In ASP.NET, for example, you can get a reference to the base of the application, which may or may not be the root path of the site, so using a base tag helps. Bonus: it works for every other asset too.

You can have a base path like this:

<base href="/application_root/" />

...and then links like "foo/bar.html" will actually be /application_root/foo/bar.html.

Another approach I like to use is to put named links in the header. I will often have an API root in one location and a directive template root somewhere else. In the head, I'll then add some tags like this:

<link id="linkApiRoot" href="/application_root/api/"/>
<link id="linkTemplateRoot" href="/application_root/Content/Templates/"/>

... and then use $provide in the module to get the link href and expose it to services and directives like so:

angular.module("app.services", [])
    .config(["$provide", function ($provide) {
        $provide.value("apiRoot", $("#linkApiRoot").attr("href"));
    }]);

... and then inject it to a service like this:

angular.module("app.services").factory("myAdminSvc", ["apiRoot", function (apiRoot) {
    var apiAdminRoot = apiRoot + "admin/";
    ...

Just my opinion though. Do the least complex thing for your application.