# Tutorial: 4 - Two-way Data Binding

In this step, you will add a feature to let your users control the order of the items in the phone list. The dynamic ordering is implemented by creating a new model property, wiring it together with the repeater, and letting the data binding magic do the rest of the work.

You should see that in addition to the search box, the app displays a drop down menu that allows users to control the order in which the phones are listed.

The most important differences between Steps 3 and 4 are listed below. You can see the full diff on GitHub:

### Template

`app/index.html`:

    ...
      <ul class="controls">
        <li>
          Search: <input type="text" name="query"/>
        </li>
        <li>
          Sort by:
          <select name="orderProp">
            <option value="name">Alphabetical</option>
            <option value="age">Newest</option>
          </select>
        </li>
      </ul>

      <ul class="phones">
        <li ng:repeat="phone in phones.$filter(query).$orderBy(orderProp)">
          {{phone.name}}
          <p>{{phone.snippet}}</p>
        </li>
      </ul>
    ...

We made the following changes to the `index.html` template:

- First, we added a `<select>` html element named `orderProp`, so that our users can pick from the two provided sorting options.

- We then chained the `$filter` method with ``$orderBy`` method to further process the input into the repeater. `$orderBy` is a utility method similar to ``$filter``, but instead of filtering an array, it reorders it.

Angular creates a two way data-binding between the select element and the `orderProp` model. `orderProp` is then used as the input for the `$orderBy` method.

As we discussed in the section about data-binding and the repeater in step 3, whenever the model changes (for example because a user changes the order with the select drop down menu), Angular's data-binding will cause the view to automatically update. No bloated DOM manipulation code is necessary!

### Controller

`app/js/controller.js`:

    /* App Controllers */

    function PhoneListCtrl() {
      this.phones = [{"name": "Nexus S",
                      "snippet": "Fast just got faster with Nexus S.",
                      "age": 0},
                     {"name": "Motorola XOOMâ¢ with Wi-Fi",
                      "snippet": "The Next, Next Generation tablet.",
                      "age": 1},
                     {"name": "MOTOROLA XOOMâ¢",
                      "snippet": "The Next, Next Generation tablet.",
                      "age": 2}];

      this.orderProp = 'age';
    }

- We modified the `phones` model - the array of phones - and added an `age` property to each phone record. This property is used to order phones by age.

- We added a line to the controller that sets the default value of `orderProp` to `age`. If we had not set the default value here, angular would have used the value of the first `<option>` element (`'name'`) when it initialized the data model.

  This is a good time to talk about two-way data-binding. Notice that when the app is loaded in the browser, "Newest" is selected in the drop down menu. This is because we set `orderProp` to `'age'` in the controller. So the binding works in the direction from our model to the UI. Now if you select "Alphabetically" in the drop down menu, the model will be updated as well and the phones will be reordered. That is the data-binding doing its job in the opposite direction â from the UI to the model.

### Test

The changes we made should be verified with both a unit test and an end-to-end test. Let's look at the unit test first.

`test/unit/controllerSpec.js`:

    describe('PhoneCat controllers', function() {

      describe('PhoneListCtrl', function(){
        var scope, $browser, ctrl;

        beforeEach(function() {
          ctrl = new PhoneListCtrl();
        });

        it('should create "phones" model with 3 phones', function() {
          expect(ctrl.phones.length).toBe(3);
        });

        it('should set the default value of orderProp model', function() {
          expect(ctrl.orderProp).toBe('age');
        });
      });
    });

The unit test now verifies that the default ordering property is set.

We used Jasmine's API to extract the controller construction into a `beforeEach` block, which is shared by all tests in the parent `describe` block.

To run the unit tests, once again execute the `./scripts/test.sh` script and you should see the following output.

        Chrome: Runner reset.
        ..
        Total 2 tests (Passed: 2; Fails: 0; Errors: 0) (3.00 ms)
          Chrome 11.0.696.57 Mac OS: Run 2 tests (Passed: 2; Fails: 0; Errors 0) (3.00 ms)

Let's turn our attention to the end-to-end test.

`test/e2e/scenarios.js`:

    ...
        it('should be possible to control phone order via the drop down select box',
            function() {

          // narrow the dataset to make the test assertions shorter
          input('query').enter('tablet');

          expect(repeater('.phones li', 'Phone List').column('a')).
              toEqual(["Motorola XOOM\u2122 with Wi-Fi",
                       "MOTOROLA XOOM\u2122"]);

          select('orderProp').option('alphabetical');

          expect(repeater('.phones li', 'Phone List').column('a')).
              toEqual(["MOTOROLA XOOM\u2122",
                       "Motorola XOOM\u2122 with Wi-Fi"]);
        });
    ...

The end-to-end test verifies that the ordering mechanism of the select box is working correctly.

You can now refresh the browser tab with the end-to-end test runner to see the tests run, or you can see them running on Angular's server.

## Experiments

- In the `PhoneListCtrl` controller, remove the statement that sets the `orderProp` value and you'll see that the ordering as well as the current selection in the dropdown menu will default to "Alphabetical".

- Add an `{{orderProp}}` binding into the `index.html` template to display its current value as text.

## Summary

Now that you have added list sorting and tested the app, go to step 5 to learn about Angular services and how Angular uses dependency injection.