How to check if element with ID exists in AngularJS

Question

How can I check if an element with a specific ID already exists in my DOM inside an Angular directive? By using angular.element() an element is created if one does not exist, for example angular.element('someID') will return an element whether one already exist or not.

What I am doing now as a workaround is using the .html() jqLite function like this:

if(angular.element('#someElementID').html()) {

console.log('only fires if element already exists');

}

Is there a better way to do this? I would like to avoid including the whole jQuery just for this.

Did you try angular.element($document).find('#someElementID') ? — DrDyne, Jun 20 '14 at 15:25
I just tried that in the console, both angular.element($document).find('#someElementID') and angular.element('#someElementID') return an empty array. You should be pretty safe doing the following: if ( angular.element('#someElementID').length ) { console.log('#someElementID exists'); } — DrDyne, Jun 20 '14 at 15:29
True it's an array, thanks for pointing it out. Feel free to post an answer otherwise I'll do it later to close the question. — Dimitris, Jun 20 '14 at 15:32
The Angular documentation (which I find quite poor by the way) added to my confusion since it mentions that `angular.element()` returns a jQuery object and not an array: https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/function/angular.element — Dimitris, Jun 20 '14 at 19:13

score 33 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:34

33

Both angular.element($document).find('#someElementID') and angular.element('#someElementID') return an empty array, in case several dom nodes matched the selector.

You should be pretty safe doing the following:

if ( angular.element('#someElementID').length ) {
    console.log('#someElementID exists');
}

Also keep in mind that jQLite .find() method only supports tag names.

answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:34

DrDyne

1,592
1
12
10

Could you please add an example with real data? It's because I don't know how is "angula.element" related to my code. – Julian Moreno Jun 13 '16 at 14:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 09 '16 at 18:29

0

I have tested, its working fine..

If the ID is Exists, it return 1

ID is not Exists, it return 0

if(angular.element('#someElementID').length >0){
 console.log("Id is available.");
}else{
  console.log("Id is not available.");
}

answered Nov 09 '16 at 18:29

Dinesh Vaitage

2,983
19
16

How to check if element with ID exists in AngularJS

2 Answers2