Easiest way to pass an AngularJS scope variable from directive to controller?

Question

What is the easiest way to pass an AngularJS scope variable from directive to controller? All of the examples that I've seen seem so complex, isn't there a way I can access a controller from a directive, and set one of it's scope variables?

Answer 1

Edited on 2014/8/25: Here was where I forked it.

Thanks @anvarik.

Here is the JSFiddle. I forgot where I forked this. But this is a good example showing you the difference between = and @

<div ng-controller="MyCtrl">
    <h2>Parent Scope</h2>
    <input ng-model="foo"> <i>// Update to see how parent scope interacts with component scope</i>    
    <br><br>
    <!-- attribute-foo binds to a DOM attribute which is always
    a string. That is why we are wrapping it in curly braces so
    that it can be interpolated. -->
    <my-component attribute-foo="{{foo}}" binding-foo="foo"
        isolated-expression-foo="updateFoo(newFoo)" >
        <h2>Attribute</h2>
        <div>
            <strong>get:</strong> {{isolatedAttributeFoo}}
        </div>
        <div>
            <strong>set:</strong> <input ng-model="isolatedAttributeFoo">
            <i>// This does not update the parent scope.</i>
        </div>
        <h2>Binding</h2>
        <div>
            <strong>get:</strong> {{isolatedBindingFoo}}
        </div>
        <div>
            <strong>set:</strong> <input ng-model="isolatedBindingFoo">
            <i>// This does update the parent scope.</i>
        </div>
        <h2>Expression</h2>    
        <div>
            <input ng-model="isolatedFoo">
            <button class="btn" ng-click="isolatedExpressionFoo({newFoo:isolatedFoo})">Submit</button>
            <i>// And this calls a function on the parent scope.</i>
        </div>
    </my-component>
</div>

var myModule = angular.module('myModule', [])
    .directive('myComponent', function () {
        return {
            restrict:'E',
            scope:{
                /* NOTE: Normally I would set my attributes and bindings
                to be the same name but I wanted to delineate between
                parent and isolated scope. */                
                isolatedAttributeFoo:'@attributeFoo',
                isolatedBindingFoo:'=bindingFoo',
                isolatedExpressionFoo:'&'
            }        
        };
    })
    .controller('MyCtrl', ['$scope', function ($scope) {
        $scope.foo = 'Hello!';
        $scope.updateFoo = function (newFoo) {
            $scope.foo = newFoo;
        }
    }]);