ng-annotate

ng-annotate

ng-annotate adds and removes AngularJS dependency injection annotations. It is non-intrusive so your source code stays exactly the same otherwise. No lost comments or moved lines.

Without annotations:

angular.module("MyMod").controller("MyCtrl", function($scope, $timeout) {
});

With annotations:

angular.module("MyMod").controller("MyCtrl", ["$scope","$timeout", function($scope, $timeout) {
}]);

Annotations are useful because with them you're able to minify your source code using your favorite JS minifier.

Installation and usage

npm install -g ng-annotate

Then run it as ng-annotate OPTIONS file.js. The errors (if any) will go to stderr, the transpiled source to stdout, so redirect it like ng-annotate file.js > output.js.

Use the --add (-a) option to add annotations where non-existing, use --remove (-r) to remove all existing annotations, use --add --remove (-ar) to rebuild all annotations.

See description of the --regexp options further down.

There's also a Grunt plugin, see grunt-ng-annotate.

ng-annotate is written in ES6 constlet style and uses defs.js to transpile to ES5. Build instrunctions in BUILD.md.

Why?

• Keep your code base clutter free from annotations but add them in your build step prior to minimizing
• De-clutter an existing code base by removing annotations, non-intrusively
• If you must store annotations in the repo (for any reason) then checkout, remove them, code and refactor without annotations, add them back and commit. Alternatively checkout, code and refactor (ignoring annotations), rebuild them and commit.

Declaration forms

ng-annotate understands the two common declaration forms:

Long form:

angular.module("MyMod").controller("MyCtrl", function($scope, $timeout) {
});

Short form:

myMod.controller("MyCtrl", function($scope, $timeout) {
});

It's not limited to .controller of course. It understands .config, .factory, .directive, .filter, .run, .controller and .service.

For short forms it does not need to see the declaration of myMod so you can run it on your individual source files without concatenating. If ng-annotate detects a short form false positive then you can use the --regexp option to limit the module identifier. Examples: --regexp "^myMod$" (match only myMod) or --regexp "^$" (ignore short forms).

ng-annotate understands this.$get = function($scope) and {.., $get: function($scope), ..} inside a provider.

ng-annotate understands return {.., controller: function($scope), ..} inside a directive.

ng-annotate understands chaining.

Performance

ng-annotate is designed to be very fast (in general limited by parse speed). It traverses the AST exactly once and transforms it without the need for an AST -> source decompilation step.

Library (API)

ng-annotate can be used as a library. See ng-annotate.js for further info about options and return value. ng-annotate uses ES6 const and let, so you must currently run node in --harmony mode. I will publish a version of ng-annotate that is pre-transpiled using defs so that the --harmony requirement goes away, if that is of interest.

var ngAnnotate = require("ng-annotate");
var transformedSource = ngAnnotate(src, {add: true}).src;

Changelog

v0.3.0 2013-09-30

• ES5 build via defs
• Grunt-support via grunt-ng-annotate