$routeProvider.when() ignores inherited properties on route argument

[cjerdonek]

The $routeProvider only seems to notice properties on the route parameter to $routeProvider.when(path, route) when those properties are own properties. It doesn't seem to pick up properties on the route object that are inherited properties (i.e. properties coming from prototypal inheritance).

I believe this is because the implementation of when() in the source code calls angular.extend() with the route as one of the sources, and angular.extend() only seems to copy own properties and not inherited properties of the sources.

If this limitation is deliberate, it should probably be in the documentation of the route parameter to when().

[cjerdonek]

Also, just to state my use case for this, if I have a lot of routes that share some information, my idea was to define those routes as inheriting from a base route. Otherwise, one needs to copy the base route for each route.

[IgorMinar]

This is because $routeProvider uses extend which uses forEach which iterates only over own enumerable properties.

extend's behavior is correct, but I don't think that we intentionally tried to disable proto-inheritance for route definition objects. It's just not a pattern we've seen anyone try before.

if you go the route of doing

.when('/foo', new MyCustomRouteWithDefaults({prop1: val1, prop2: val2});

then why not do this instead:

.when('/foo', angular.extend({}, defaults, {prop1: val1, prop2: val2});

or even better:

.when('/foo', createMyRouteWithDefault({prop1: val1, prop2: val2}));

But I do agree that we should either update the docs or change the code. The change should be fairly small, so it might make more sense to just make it and be done with it.

[IgorMinar]

if you'd like to make the change + add a test, we'll merge it in.

[cjerdonek]

Thanks, yes, that's more or less what I wound up doing.

Ideally, I think the code should be changed. But is there an efficient way to copy the properties that result from proto-inheritance? Alternatively, $routeProvider.when(path, route) could store a reference to the passed route instead of copying from it, but that might be a bigger or more delicate change.

One more thing: given that you say angular.extend()'s behavior is correct, I think it would also be worth clarifying the angular.extend() documentation in this regard.