How to set automatically input values as empty (instead of "undefined") when the user remove the value?

Question

How to set automatically input values as empty (instead of "undefined") when the user remove the value?

4.2k Views Asked by J.BizMai At 24 April 2025 at 06:28

In Angular 1.6, when the user removes values inside inputs, these values are set up to "undefined". It seems to be the default behaviour in AngularJS.

HTML

<input ng-model="name" class="form-control" id="inp_name"
       placeholder="My Name" required="true" value="" />

Controller

...
$scope.name = ""; <-- here the initial value is correctly set up as empty
...
$scope.submit = function(){
     alert($scope.name); <-- the value can be "undefined" if the user removed all the string
};

How to automatically set up the value as empty instead of "undefined" each time the text input is empty on the front-end ?

Original Q&A

There are 4 best solutions below

Sletheren On 29 August 2017 at 15:21

You can add this in your submit function:

$scope.name = $scope.name ? $scope.name : "";

Varun Sukheja On 29 August 2017 at 15:28

If there is no value in $scope.name (covers undefined) then setting it to empty string

if(!$scope.name){$scope.name="";}

J.BizMai On 29 August 2017 at 15:54

An alternative but an automatic way (which seems to be the best) is to use a function to check up if the value is empty, null and undefined.

Controller

$scope.isEmpty = function (value) {
   return angular.equals("", value) || angular.equals(undefined, value) || angular.equals(null, value);
};

//Usage 
$scope.submit = function(){
    if($scope.isEmpty($scope.name)) ...
};

**georgeawg** · Accepted Answer

Use ng-model-options="{allowInvalid: true}" to allow an empty string when the user deletes all the characters in an input box.

For more information, see AngularJS ng-model-options Directive API Reference.

The DEMO

angular.module("app",[])
.controller("ctrl", function($scope) {
    $scope.name = "";
})

<script src="//unpkg.com/angular/angular.js"></script>
  <body ng-app="app" ng-controller="ctrl">
    <h1>ng-module-options DEMO</h1>
    <input ng-model="name" class="form-control" id="inp_name"
       placeholder="My Name" required="true" value="" 
       ng-model-options="{allowInvalid: true}"
    />
    <br>
    name= {{name === undefined ? 'undefined': name}}
    <br>
    name= {{name === "" ? 'empty string': name}}
  </body>

How to set automatically input values as empty (instead of "undefined") when the user remove the value?

There are 4 best solutions below

The DEMO

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