ng-href should accept empty values

[guilhermecvm]

Angular doesn't allow me to create a link to my base url.

<base href="/app/">

This should create an achor pointing to "http://localhost/app/". But it didn't even create the href attr.

<a ng-href="">App</a>

But this works fine, pointing to "http://localhost/app/users".

<a ng-href="users">Users</a>

This points me to "http://localhost/"

<a ng-href="/">App</a>

Also, this show the right href (http://localhost/app/) on mouseover, but angular doesn't change the page when i click.

<a href="">App</a>

I don't see how can this be achieved, it seems like a bug to me.

[wesleycho]

Why not just do <a href="/app/">...</a>?

[guilhermecvm]

That would do but sounds more like a workaround then a solution. Also, those links are generated automatically through a breadcrumb directive and when i need to change the base url, having to change it on two places doesn't look like a good choice.

[Vibhuti]

If I understand correctly you want <a ng-href="">App</a> to results in <a href="">App</a>

For some reason there is this code:

angular.js/src/ng/directive/attrs.js

Lines 408 to 410 in 14b3db3

	if (attrName === 'href') {
	attr.$set(name, null);
	}

which seems to be the reason why this is not happening. I don't know why this line is here.

[gkalpak]

Basically, there are two things going on here:

1. Currently, an empty ngHref will remove the href attribute. This is discussed in: ng-href in <a> tag ignores empty value "" #2755, fix(ngHref): allow setting href to empty string #6983, fix(ngHref): remove attribute when empty value instead of ignoring #6986
2. Anchor elements with an empty href attribute are modified by Angular in order to prevent their default action (https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/directive/a).

The reasoning for (1) is that an empty would point to the base href, but it is debatable if this is more of a feature than a bug. Basically, it would be nice to have a way to indicate when we want href="" (which might direct to the base href) and when we want no href.

Regarding (2), when base href comes into play, it is again debatable if an empty href is supposed to work as a link (to the base href) or just a clickable element.

[guilhermecvm]

@gkalpak so there is no way to create a link to the base url, right? To make it work, i would need to change both places you said, but then it can/will break other stuff, right?

[gkalpak]

Not sure what two places you are referring to, but it seems that the only way to create a (working) link to the base url is to have the link's href equal the base url.
In any case, I believe this is a bug and should be somehow addressed (it's not clear "how", though).

[lgalfaso]

The html way is href="." Not sure if this works in angular

[gkalpak]

Aha, indeed it works (both with href and ng-href). Thx @lgalfaso.
So, @guilhermecvm, it seems that prefixing the URLs with ./ should work (without having to change anything in two places etc).

[lgalfaso]

With @gkalpak validation that ./ works, then I think it is ok to close this. Anyhow, feel free to reopen it in case there is another issue

[guilhermecvm]

works perfectly, really nice solution! Thanks @lgalfaso