From the Official Docs:
$rootScope
exists, but it can be used for evil
Scopes in Angular form a hierarchy, prototypally inheriting from a root scope at the top of the tree. Usually this can be ignored, since most views have a controller, and therefore a scope, of their own.
Occasionally there are pieces of data that you want to make global to the whole app. For these, you can inject $rootScope
and set values on it like any other scope. Since the scopes inherit from the root scope, these values will be available to the expressions attached to directives like ng-show just like values on your local $scope
.
Of course, global state sucks and you should use $rootScope
sparingly, like you would (hopefully) use with global variables in any language. In particular, don't use it for code, only data. If you're tempted to put a function on $rootScope
, it's almost always better to put it in a service that can be injected where it's needed, and more easily tested.
Conversely, don't create a service whose only purpose in life is to store and return bits of data.
--AngularJS Miscellaneous FAQ