On this page:

Target audience:

Users of the extension providing AngularJS support for Web applications.

Summary: This document provides basic information about the extension providing AngularJS support for Web applications.

What's new

Improvements to rule documentation.

Description

This extension provides support for AngularJS.

In what situation should you install this extension?

If your Web application contains AngularJS source code and you want to view these object types and their links with other objects, then you should install this extension:

Creates AngularJS object structure (see below)
Creates links between these objects and links between HTML files and controller scope elements
Directives are partly handled:
- links between HTML tags and directives are handled
- links between HTML attributes in directive sections and directive scope items are handled

Regarding Front-End to Back-End connections, we do support the following cross-technology stacks:


AngularJS Front-End connected JEE Back-End	AngularJS Front-End connected Node.js Back-End

Supported AngularJS versions

The following table displays the list of AngularJS versions that this extension supports:

AngularJS Version	Transaction Support	Rules Support	Type of Support
1.0			Full-stack use case support
1.2			Fullstack use case support
1.3			Fullstack use case support
1.4			Fullstack use case support
1.5			Fullstack use case support
1.6			Fullstack use case support

Comparison with existing support for JavaScript in CAST AIP

CAST AIP has provided support for analyzing JavaScript via its JEE and .NET analyzers (provided out of box in CAST AIP) for some time now. The HTML5/JavaScript extension (on which the AngularJS extension depends) also provides support for JavaScript but with a focus on web applications. CAST highly recommends that you use this extension if your Application contains JavaScript and more specifically if you want to analyze a web application, however you should take note of the following:

You should ensure that you configure the extension to NOT analyze the back end web client part of a .NET or JEE application.
You should ensure that you configure the extension to ONLY analyze the front end web application built with the HTML5/JavaScript that communicates with the back end web client part of a .NET or JEE application.
If the back end web client part of a .NET or JEE application is analyzed with the AngularJS extension and with the native .NET/JEE analyzers, then your results will reflect this - there will be duplicate objects and links (i.e. from the analyzer and from the extension) therefore impacting results and creating erroneous Function Point data.

Note that in CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.x support for analyzing JavaScript has been withdrawn from the JEE and .NET analyzers.

Function Point, Quality and Sizing support

This extension provides the following support:

Function Points (transactions): a green tick indicates that OMG Function Point counting and Transaction Risk Index are supported
Quality and Sizing: a green tick indicates that CAST can measure size and that a minimum set of Quality Rules exist

Function Points (transactions)	Quality and Sizing	Security

CAST AIP compatibility

This extension is compatible with:

CAST AIP release	Supported
8.3.x
8.2.x
8.1.x
8.0.x
7.3.4 and all higher 7.3.x releases

Supported DBMS servers

This extension is compatible with the following DBMS servers:

CAST AIP release	CSS	Oracle	Microsoft
All supported releases

Prerequisites

An installation of any compatible release of CAST AIP (see table above)

Dependencies with other extensions

Some CAST extensions require the presence of other CAST extensions in order to function correctly. The AngularJS extension requires that the following other CAST extensions are also installed:

Note that when using the CAST Extension Downloader to download the extension and the Manage Extensions interface in CAST Server Manager to install the extension, any dependent extensions are automatically downloaded and installed for you. You do not need to do anything.

Download and installation instructions

Please see:

The latest release status of this extension can be seen when downloading it from the CAST Extend server.

Packaging, delivering and analyzing your source code

Once the extension is downloaded and installed, you can now package your source code and run an analysis. The process of packaging, delivering and analyzing your source code is described below:

What results can you expect?

Once the analysis/snapshot generation has completed, you can view the results in the normal manner (for example via CAST Enlighten):

CAST AIP Technologies > AngularJS - 1.7 > NodeAngularEnlighten.png

E.g. : AngularJS Front-end connected to Node.js Back-end

CAST AIP Technologies > AngularJS - 1.7 > angularjsobjectsV11.png

E.g. : AngularJS Front-end connected to JEE/Spring MVC Back-end

Objects

The following specific objects are displayed in CAST Enlighten:

Icon	Description
	AngularJS Application
	AngularJS Controller
	AngularJS Directive
	AngularJS Directive Controller
	AngularJS Directive Link Function
	AngularJS Factory
	AngularJS Model function
	AngularJS Model variable
	AngularJS Service
	AngularJS Get Resource Service
	AngularJS Post Resource Service
	AngularJS Put Resource Service
	AngularJS Delete Resource Service
	AngularJS Get Http Service
	AngularJS Post Http Service
	AngularJS Put Http Service
	AngularJS Delete Http Service
	AngularJS Watch function

If your application is supposed to be communicating with services, ensure you have GET, POST, PUT, DELETE Service objects created after the analysis.

Rules

You can find a full list of rules delivered with this extension here: https://technologies.castsoftware.com/?rlH=extensions/com.castsoftware.angularjs/1.7.0-funcrel.json

Technical notes

Avoid using unsanitized AngularJS application (1020546)

The AngularJS Quality Rule Avoid using unsanitized AngularJS application (1020546) is designed to list violations for missing items. When this type of Quality Rule is violated, it is not possible to place a bookmark at the location in the code where the violation occurs since the violation is for something that is missing. In this situation, for this specific Quality Rule, the following is done:

When the AngularJS application is defined in an HTML file (as is sometimes the case) the bookmark will be placed on the entire HTML file.
If the no HTML file associated to the AngularJS application can be found then no bookmark will be created at all. In this situation, the message "No associated html file" will be visible in the analysis log file and the following error message will be displayed in the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard when an attempt is made to view the code of the violation: The source file is absent from the Local Site. Page cannot be displayed.

Known Limitations

In this section we list the most significant functional limitations that may affect the analysis of applications using AngularJS:

AngularJS objects declared with prototypes

The extension does not detect AngularJS objects when they are declared with prototype. For example:

xxx.service('ContentService', ['$rootScope', '$window', '$resource', '$q', '$log', 'ManageContentURIs', attContent.content]);

attContent.content.prototype.retrieveContent = function(criteria, useStubs) {
var useStub = useStubs?useStubs:false;
var deferred = this.q.defer(),

Structured constants

Structured constants are not supported and associated links will not be resolved. For example, a service calls a constant to make a POST via a URL:

CAST AIP Technologies > AngularJS - 1.7 > limit1.jpg

CAST AIP Technologies > AngularJS - 1.7 > limit2.jpg