What is the best way to conditionally apply a class?

Lets say you have an array that is rendered in a ul with an li for each element and a property on the controller called selectedIndex. What would be the best way to add a class to the li with the index selectedIndex in AngularJS?

I am currently duplicating (by hand) the li code and adding the class to one of the li tags and using ng-show and ng-hide to show only one li per index.

If you don't want to put CSS class names into Controller like I do, here is an old trick that I use since pre-v1 days. We can write an expression that evaluates directly to a class name selected, no custom directives are necessary:

ng:class="{true:'selected', false:''}[$index==selectedIndex]"

Please note the old syntax with colon.

There is also a new better way of applying classes conditionally, like:

ng-class="{selected: $index==selectedIndex}"

Angular now supports expressions that return an object. Each property (name) of this object is now considered as a class name and is applied depending on its value.

However these ways are not functionally equal. Here is an example:

ng-class="{admin:'enabled', moderator:'disabled', '':'hidden'}[user.role]"

We could therefore reuse existing CSS classes by basically mapping a model property to a class name and at the same time keep CSS classes out of Controller code.

ng-class supports an expression that must evaluate to either

1. A string of space-delimited class names, or
2. An array of class names, or
3. A map/object of class names to boolean values.

So, using form 3) we can simply write

ng-class="{'selected': $index==selectedIndex}"

See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13813254/how-do-i-conditionally-apply-css-styles-in-angularjs for a broader answer.

---

Update: Angular 1.1.5 has added support for a ternary operator, so if that construct is more familiar to you:

ng-class="($index==selectedIndex) ? 'selected' : ''"

My favorite method is using the ternary expression.

ng-class="condition ? 'trueClass' : 'falseClass'"

Note: Incase you're using a older version of Angular you should use this instead,

ng-class="condition && 'trueClass' || 'falseClass'"

I'll add to this, because some of these answers seem out of date. Here's how I do it:

<class="ng-class:isSelected">

Where 'isSelected' is a javascript variable defined within the scoped angular controller.


To more specifically address your question, here's how you might generate a list with that:

HTML

<div ng-controller="ListCtrl">  
    <li class="ng-class:item.isSelected" ng-repeat="item in list">   
       {{item.name}}
    </li>  
</div>

JS

function ListCtrl($scope) {    
    $scope.list = [  
        {"name": "Item 1", "isSelected": "active"},  
        {"name": "Item 2", "isSelected": ""}
    ]
}

See: http://jsfiddle.net/tTfWM/

See: http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng.directive:ngClass

Here is a much simpler solution:

function MyControl($scope){
    $scope.values = ["a","b","c","d","e","f"];
    $scope.selectedIndex = -1;
    
    $scope.toggleSelect = function(ind){
        if( ind === $scope.selectedIndex ){
            $scope.selectedIndex = -1;
        } else{
            $scope.selectedIndex = ind;
        }
    }
    
    $scope.getClass = function(ind){
        if( ind === $scope.selectedIndex ){
            return "selected";
        } else{
            return "";
        }
    }
       
    $scope.getButtonLabel = function(ind){
        if( ind === $scope.selectedIndex ){
            return "Deselect";
        } else{
            return "Select";
        }
    }
}

.selected {
    color:red;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.0.1/angular.min.js"></script>
<div ng-app ng-controller="MyControl">
    <ul>
        <li ng-class="getClass($index)" ng-repeat="value in values" >{{value}} <button ng-click="toggleSelect($index)">{{getButtonLabel($index)}}</button></li>
    </ul>
    <p>Selected: {{selectedIndex}}</p>
</div>

I faced a similar problem recently and decided to just create a conditional filter:

  angular.module('myFilters', []).
    /**
     * "if" filter
     * Simple filter useful for conditionally applying CSS classes and decouple
     * view from controller 
     */
    filter('if', function() {
      return function(input, value) {
        if (typeof(input) === 'string') {
          input = [input, ''];
        }
        return value? input[0] : input[1];
      };
    });

It takes a single argument, which is either a 2-element array or a string, which gets turned into an array that is appended an empty string as the second element:

<li ng-repeat="item in products | filter:search | orderBy:orderProp |
  page:pageNum:pageLength" ng-class="'opened'|if:isOpen(item)">
  ...
</li>

If you want to go beyond binary evaluation and keep your CSS out of your controller you can implement a simple filter that evaluates the input against a map object:

angular.module('myApp.filters, [])
  .filter('switch', function () { 
      return function (input, map) {
          return map[input] || '';
      }; 
  });

This allows you to write your markup like this:

<div ng-class="muppets.star|switch:{'Kermit':'green', 'Miss Piggy': 'pink', 'Animal': 'loud'}">
    ...
</div>

The was I recently did that was doing this:

<input type="password"  placeholder="Enter your password"
ng-class="{true: 'form-control isActive', false: 'isNotActive'}[isShowing]">

The isShowing value is a value that is located on my controller that gets toggled with the click of a button and the parts between the single parenthesis are classes I created in my css file.

EDIT: I would also like to add that codeschool.com has a free course that is sponsored by google on AngularJS that goes over all of this stuff and then some. There is no need to pay for anything, just signup for an account and get going! Best of luck to you all!

Ternary operator has just been added to angular parser in 1.1.5.

So the simplest way to do this is now :

ng:class="($index==selectedIndex)? 'selected' : ''"

We can make a function to manage return class with condition

<script>
    angular.module('myapp', [])
            .controller('ExampleController', ['$scope', function ($scope) {
                $scope.MyColors = ['It is Red', 'It is Yellow', 'It is Blue', 'It is Green', 'It is Gray'];
                $scope.getClass = function (strValue) {
                    switch(strValue) {
                        case "It is Red":return "Red";break;
                        case "It is Yellow":return "Yellow";break;
                        case "It is Blue":return "Blue";break;
                        case "It is Green":return "Green";break;
                        case "It is Gray":return "Gray";break;
                    }
                }
        }]);
</script>

And then

<body ng-app="myapp" ng-controller="ExampleController">

<h2>AngularJS ng-class if example</h2>
<ul >
    <li ng-repeat="icolor in MyColors" >
        <p ng-class="[getClass(icolor), 'b']">{{icolor}}</p>
    </li>
</ul>
<hr/>
<p>Other way using : ng-class="{'class1' : expression1, 'class2' : expression2,'class3':expression2,...}"</p>
<ul>
    <li ng-repeat="icolor in MyColors">
        <p ng-class="{'Red':icolor=='It is Red','Yellow':icolor=='It is Yellow','Blue':icolor=='It is Blue','Green':icolor=='It is Green','Gray':icolor=='It is Gray'}" class="b">{{icolor}}</p>
    </li>
</ul>

You can refer to full code page at ng-class if example

I am new to Angular but have found this to solve my issue:

<i class="icon-download" ng-click="showDetails = ! showDetails" ng-class="{'icon-upload': showDetails}"></i>

This will conditionally apply a class based on a var. It starts off with a icon-download as a default, the using ng-class, I check the status of showDetails if true/false and apply class icon-upload. Its working great.

Hope it helps.

This works like a charm ;)

<ul class="nav nav-pills" ng-init="selectedType = 'return'">
	<li role="presentation" ng-class="{'active':selectedType === 'return'}"
		ng-click="selectedType = 'return'"><a href="#return">return
			
	</a></li>
	<li role="presentation" ng-class="{'active':selectedType === 'oneway'}"
		ng-click="selectedType = 'oneway'"><a href="#oneway">oneway
	</a></li>
</ul>

This will probably get downvoted to oblivion, but here is how I used 1.1.5's ternary operators to switch classes depending on whether a row in a table is the first, middle or last -- except if there is only one row in the table:

<span class="attribute-row" ng-class="(restaurant.Attributes.length === 1) || ($first ? 'attribute-first-row': false || $middle ? 'attribute-middle-row': false || $last ? 'attribute-last-row': false)">
</span>

This is in my work multiple conditionally judge:

<li ng-repeat='eOption in exam.examOptions' ng-class="exam.examTitle.ANSWER_COM==exam.examTitle.RIGHT_ANSWER?(eOption.eoSequence==exam.examTitle.ANSWER_COM?'right':''):eOption.eoSequence==exam.examTitle.ANSWER_COM?'wrong':eOption.eoSequence==exam.examTitle.RIGHT_ANSWER?'right':''">
  <strong>{{eOption.eoSequence}}</strong> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
  <span ng-bind-html="eOption.eoName | to_trusted">2020 元</span>
</li>

Here is another option that works well when ng-class can't be used (for example when styling SVG):

ng-attr-class="{{someBoolean && 'class-when-true' || 'class-when-false' }}"

(I think you need to be on latest unstable Angular to use ng-attr-, I'm currently on 1.1.4)

partial

  <div class="col-md-4 text-right">
      <a ng-class="campaign_range === 'thismonth' ? 'btn btn-blue' :  'btn btn-link'" href="#" ng-click='change_range("thismonth")'>This Month</a>
      <a ng-class="campaign_range === 'all' ? 'btn btn-blue' :  'btn btn-link'" href="#" ng-click='change_range("all")'>All Time</a>
  </div>

controller

  $scope.campaign_range = "all";
  $scope.change_range = function(range) { 
		if (range === "all")
		{
			$scope.campaign_range = "all"
		}
		else
		{  
			$scope.campaign_range = "thismonth"
		}
  };

well i would suggest you to check condition in your controller with a function returning true or false .

<div class="week-wrap" ng-class="{today: getTodayForHighLight(todayDate, day.date)}">{{day.date}}</div>

and in your controller check the condition

$scope.getTodayForHighLight = function(today, date){
return (today == date);
}

Check this.

The infamous AngularJS if|else statement!!!
When I started using Angularjs, I was a bit surprised that I couldn’t find an if/else statement.

So I was working on a project and I noticed that when using the if/else statement, the condition shows while loading. You can use ng-cloak to fix this.

<div class="ng-cloak">
 <p ng-show="statement">Show this line</span>
 <p ng-hide="statement">Show this line instead</span>
</div>

.ng-cloak { display: none }

Thanks amadou

If you are using angular pre v1.1.5 (i.e. no ternary operator) and you still want an equivalent way to set a value in both conditions you can do something like this:

ng-class="{'class1':item.isReadOnly == false, 'class2':item.isReadOnly == true}"

If you having a common class that is applied to many elements you can create a custom directive that will add that class like ng-show/ng-hide.

This directive will add the class 'active' to the button if it's clicked

module.directive('ngActive',  ['$animate', function($animate) {
  return function(scope, element, attr) {
    scope.$watch(attr.ngActive, function ngActiveWatchAction(value){
      $animate[value ? 'addClass' : 'removeClass'](element, 'active');
    });
  };
}]);

More info

Just adding something that worked for me today, after much searching...

<div class="form-group" ng-class="{true: 'has-error'}[ctrl.submitted && myForm.myField.$error.required]">

Hope this assists in your successful development.

=)

Undocumented Expression Syntax : Great Website Link... =)

You can use this npm package. It handles everything and has options for static and conditional classes based on a variable or a function.

// Support for string arguments
getClassNames('class1', 'class2');

// support for Object
getClassNames({class1: true, class2 : false});

// support for all type of data
getClassNames('class1', 'class2', ['class3', 'class4'], { 
    class5 : function() { return false; },
    class6 : function() { return true; }
});

<div className={getClassNames({class1: true, class2 : false})} />

I understand this question id for angular, but if anyone is using React or a React-Based Framework (Amplify, NextJS, Serverless, etc.) The solution is significantly easier. The most performant way is with a ternary operator like so:

<div className={condition ? "classnameiftrue" : "classnameiffalse"}>

You can use this strategy to animate the tree if using useState() as each time the state changes it will reload that conditional with the new value.