Angular passing scope to ng-include

Question

I have a controller that I wrote that I use in multiple places in my app with ng-include and ng-repeat, like this:

<div
  ng-repeat="item in items"
  ng-include="'item.html'"
  ng-controller="ItemController"
></div>

In the controller/template, I expect the item value to exist, and the whole thing is built around this idea. Now, though, I need to use the controller in a slightly different way, without the ng-repeat, but still need to be able to pass in an item. I saw ng-init and thought it could do what I needed, like this:

<div
  ng-init="item = leftItem"
  ng-include="'item.html'"
  ng-controller="ItemController"
></div>
<div
  ng-init="item = rightItem"
  ng-include="'item.html'"
  ng-controller="ItemController"
></div>

But that does not seem to be working. Anyone have any ideas how I can pass in a variable for scope in a singular instance like this?

Edit: The controller above this is loading in the leftItem and rightItem values, something like this:

.controller('MainController', function($scope, ItemModel) {
    ItemModel.loadItems()
        .then(function(items) {
            $scope.$apply(function() {
                $scope.leftItem = items.left;
                $scope.rightItem = items.right;
            });
        });
});

Answer 1

Late to the party, but there is a little angular 'hack' to achieve this without implementing a dumb directive.

Adding a built-in directive that will extend your controller's scope (like ng-if) everywhere you use the ng-include will actually let you isolate the variable name for all the included scopes.

So:

<div ng-include="'item.html'"
  ng-if="true"
  onload="item = rightItem">
</div>
<div ng-include="'item.html'"
  ng-if="true"
  onload="item = leftItem">
</div>

You can then bind your template item.html to the item variable several times with different items.

Here is a plunker to achieve what you want

The problem was the item keeps changing in the controller scope that only holds one reference to item variable which is erased at each onload instruction.

Introducing a directive that extends the current scope, lets you have a isolated scope for all the ng-include. As a consequence the item reference is preserved and unique in all extended scope.