How to find a reason AngularJS "Argument 'MyCtrl' is not a function, got undefined"

ghz 1years ago ⋅ 3005 views

Question

When AngularJS crashes with an error " Argument 'MyCtrl' is not a function, got undefined " it's may be little bit challenging to find a reason why.

Here I want to make a kind of a "check list", what should you check when got an error

Answer

  1. Is file with 'MyCtrl' connected via html? (check twice if you concat or uglify your files)
<script src='path/to/controllers.js'></script>
  1. Is 'MyCtrl' defined correctly?

There are a few patterns:

app.controller('MyCtrl', ['$scope', function ($scope) {...}])

app.controller('MyCtrl', function ($scope) {...})

var MyCtrl = function ($scope) {...})
  1. Is 'MyCtrl' defined in right module?
  2. Is "MyCtrl's" module added to app dependencies?
angular.module('app', ['app.sources']);
  1. If you define your module multiple times, you should define it in this order :
  • First define should be like
angular.module('app.sources', []);

(with [ ] )

  • Subsequent defines should be like

    angular.module('app.sources');

(without [ ] )

Important : Declaration order is important - definition with [ ] should go first.

  1. Check that module is defined only once. You may have forgotten to rename module after copy-paste. Check src for string like
angular.module('app.sources', []);

  1. Check your 'ng-app'. Better to use only one of these with name like ng-app='app' (In other words do not define multiple unnamed ngApp directives)

  2. Is your controller's syntax correct for your AngularJS version?

(There is a difference between definition in Angular 1.0.x and 1.2.x and higher. With Angular versions greater than 1.3.x , you cannot declare a global constructor function and use it with ng-controller)

#angularjs