# Cookbook: MVC

Work in Progress This page is currently being revised. It might be incomplete or contain inaccuracies.

MVC allows for a clean an testable separation between the behavior (controller) and the view (HTML template). A Controller is just a JavaScript class which is grafted onto the scope of the view. This makes it very easy for the controller and the view to share the model.

The model is simply the controller's this. This makes it very easy to test the controller in isolation since one can simply instantiate the controller and test without a view, because there is no connection between the controller and the view.

        <script>
        function TicTacToeCntl($location){
          this.$location = $location;
          this.cellStyle= {
            'height': '20px',
            'width': '20px',
            'border': '1px solid black',
            'text-align': 'center',
            'vertical-align': 'middle',
            'cursor': 'pointer'
          };
          this.reset();
          this.$watch('$location.hashSearch.board', this.readUrl);
        }
        TicTacToeCntl.prototype = {
          dropPiece: function(row, col) {
            if (!this.winner && !this.board[row][col]) {
              this.board[row][col] = this.nextMove;
              this.nextMove = this.nextMove == 'X' ? 'O' : 'X';
              this.setUrl();
            }
          },
          reset: function(){
            this.board = [
              ['', '', ''],
              ['', '', ''],
              ['', '', '']
            ];
            this.nextMove = 'X';
            this.winner = '';
            this.setUrl();
          },
          grade: function(){
            var b = this.board;
            this.winner =
              row(0) || row(1) || row(2) ||
              col(0) || col(1) || col(2) ||
              diagonal(-1) || diagonal(1);
            function row(row) { return same(b[row][0], b[row][1], b[row][2]);}
            function col(col) { return same(b[0][col], b[1][col], b[2][col]);}
            function diagonal(i) { return same(b[0][1-i], b[1][1], b[2][1+i]);}
            function same(a, b, c) { return (a==b && b==c) ? a : '';};
          },
          setUrl: function(){
            var rows = [];
            angular.forEach(this.board, function(row){
              rows.push(row.join(','));
            });
            this.$location.hashSearch.board = rows.join(';') + '/' + this.nextMove;
          },
          readUrl: function(value) {
            if (value) {
              value = value.split('/');
              this.nextMove = value[1];
              angular.forEach(value[0].split(';'), function(row, col){
                this.board[col] = row.split(',');
              }, this);
              this.grade();
            } else {
              this.reset();
            }
          }
        };
        </script>

        <h3>Tic-Tac-Toe</h3>
        <div ng:controller="TicTacToeCntl">
        Next Player: {{nextMove}}
        <div class="winner" ng:show="winner">Player {{winner}} has won!</div>
          <table class="board">
            <tr ng:repeat="row in board" style="height:15px;">
              <td ng:repeat="cell in row" ng:style="cellStyle"
                  ng:click="dropPiece($parent.$index, $index)">{{cell}}</td>
            </tr>
          </table>
          <button ng:click="reset()">reset board</button>
        </div>

        it('should play a game', function(){
         piece(1, 1);
         expect(binding('nextMove')).toEqual('O');
         piece(3, 1);
         expect(binding('nextMove')).toEqual('X');
         piece(1, 2);
         piece(3, 2);
         piece(1, 3);
         expect(element('.winner').text()).toEqual('Player X has won!');
        });

        function piece(row, col) {
          element('.board tr:nth-child('+row+') td:nth-child('+col+')').click();
        }

## Things to notice

- The controller is defined in JavaScript and has no reference to the rendering logic.
- The controller is instantiated by `<angular/>` and injected into the view.
- The controller can be instantiated in isolation (without a view) and the code will still execute. This makes it very testable.
- The HTML view is a projection of the model. In the above example, the model is stored in the board variable.
- All of the controller's properties (such as board and nextMove) are available to the view.
- Changing the model changes the view.
- The view can call any controller function.
- In this example, the `setUrl()` and `readUrl()` functions copy the game state to/from the URL's hash so the browser's back button will undo game steps. See deep-linking. This example calls `$watch()` to set up a listener that invokes `readUrl()` when needed.