Angular Interview Questions and Answers
Freshers / Beginner level questions & answers
Ques 1. What is Angular Framework?
Angular is a TypeScript-based open-source front-end platform that makes it easy to build web, mobile and desktop applications. The major features of this framework include declarative templates, dependency injection, end to end tooling which ease application development.
Ques 2. What is the difference between AngularJS and Angular?
Angular is a completely revived component-based framework in which an application is a tree of individual components. For tabular view check here:
Ques 3. What is TypeScript?
TypeScript is a strongly typed superset of JavaScript created by Microsoft that adds optional types, classes, async/await and many other features, and compiles to plain JavaScript. Angular is written entirely in TypeScript as a primary language. You can install TypeScript globally as:
npm install -g typescript
Let's see a simple example of TypeScript usage:-function greeter(person: string) {
return "Hello, " + person;
}
let user = "Arindam";
document.body.innerHTML = greeter(user);
The greeter method allows only string type as argument.
Ques 4. What are the key components of Angular?
Angular has the key components below,
- Component: These are the basic building blocks of an Angular application to control HTML views.
- Modules: An Angular module is a set of angular basic building blocks like components, directives, services etc. An application is divided into logical pieces and each piece of code is called as "module" which perform a single task.
- Templates: These represent the views of an Angular application.
- Services: Are used to create components which can be shared across the entire application.
- Metadata: This can be used to add more data to an Angular class.
Ques 5. What are directives?
Directives add behaviour to an existing DOM element or an existing component instance.
import { Directive, ElementRef, Input } from '@angular/core';
@Directive({ selector: '[myHighlight]' })
export class HighlightDirective {
constructor(el: ElementRef) {
el.nativeElement.style.backgroundColor = 'yellow';
}
}
Now this directive extends HTML element behavior with a yellow background as below:
<p myHighlight>Highlight me!</p>
Ques 6. What are components?
Components are the most basic UI building block of an Angular app which formed a tree of Angular components. These components are subset of directives. Unlike directives, components always have a template and only one component can be instantiated per an element in a template. Let's see a simple example of Angular component:
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component ({
selector: 'my-app',
template: ` <div>
<h1>{{title}}</h1>
<div>Learn Angular6 with examples</div>
</div> `,
})
export class AppComponent {
title: string = 'Welcome to Angular world';
}
Ques 7. What are the differences between Component and Directive?
In short, A component(@component) is a directive-with-a-template.
Some of the major differences are mentioned in a tabular form
Component | Directive |
---|---|
To register a component we use @Component meta-data annotation | To register directives we use @Directive meta-data annotation |
Components are typically used to create UI widgets | Directive is used to add behavior to an existing DOM element |
Component is used to break up the application into smaller components | Directive is use to design re-usable components |
Only one component can be present per DOM element | Many directives can be used per DOM element |
@View decorator or templateurl/template are mandatory | Directive doesn't use View |
Ques 8. What is a template?
A template is a HTML view where you can display data by binding controls to properties of an Angular component. You can store your component's template in one of two places. You can define it inline using the template property, or you can define the template in a separate HTML file and link to it in the component metadata using the @Component decorator's templateUrl property.
Using inline template with template syntax,
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component ({ selector: 'my-app',
template: ' <div>
<h1>{{title}}</h1>
<div>Learn Angular</div>
</div> '
})
export class AppComponent {
title: string = 'Hello World';
}
Using separate template file such as app.component.html
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component ({
selector: 'my-app',
templateUrl: 'app/app.component.html'
})
export class AppComponent {
title: string = 'Hello World';
}
Ques 9. What is a module?
Modules are logical boundaries in your application and the application is divided into separate modules to separate the functionality of your application. Lets take an example of app.module.ts root module declared with @NgModule decorator as below:
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
@NgModule ({
imports: [ BrowserModule ],
declarations: [ AppComponent ],
bootstrap: [ AppComponent ],
providers: []
})
export class AppModule {
}
The NgModule decorator has five important(among all) options
- The imports option is used to import other dependent modules. The BrowserModule is required by default for any web based angular application
- The declarations option is used to define components in the respective module
- The bootstrap option tells Angular which Component to bootstrap in the application
- The providers option is used to configure set of injectable objects that are available in the injector of this module.
- The entryComponents option is a set of components dynamically loaded into the view.
Ques 10. What is a data binding?
Data binding is a core concept in Angular and allows to define communication between a component and the DOM, making it very easy to define interactive applications without worrying about pushing and pulling data. There are four forms of data binding(divided as 3 categories) which differ in the way the data is flowing.
From the Component to the DOM:
Interpolation: {{ value }}: Adds the value of a property from the component
<li>Name: {{ user.name }}</li>
<li>Address: {{ user.address }}</li>
Property binding: [property]=”value”: The value is passed from the component to the specified property or simple HTML attribute
<input type="email" [value]="user.email">
From the DOM to the Component: Event binding: (event)=”function”: When a specific DOM event happens (eg.: click, change, keyup), call the specified method in the component
<button (click)="logout()"></button>
Two-way binding: Two-way data binding: [(ngModel)]=”value”: Two-way data binding allows to have the data flow both ways. For example, in the below code snippet, both the email DOM input and component email property are in sync
<input type="email" [(ngModel)]="user.email">
Ques 11. What is metadata?
Metadata is used to decorate a class so that it can configure the expected behavior of the class. The metadata is represented by decorators
- Class decorators, e.g. @Component and @NgModule
import { NgModule, Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component({
selector: 'my-component',
template: '<div>Class decorator</div>',
})
export class MyComponent {
constructor() {
console.log('Hey I am a component!');
}
}
@NgModule({
imports: [],
declarations: [],
})
export class MyModule {
constructor() {
console.log('Hey I am a module!');
}
}
- Property decorators Used for properties inside classes, e.g. @Input and @Output
import { Component, Input } from '@angular/core';
@Component({
selector: 'my-component',
template: '<div>Property decorator</div>'
})
export class MyComponent {
@Input() title: string;
}
- Method decorators Used for methods inside classes, e.g. @HostListener
import { Component, HostListener } from '@angular/core';
@Component({
selector: 'my-component',
template: '<div>Method decorator</div>'
})
export class MyComponent {
@HostListener('click', ['$event'])
onHostClick(event: Event) {
// clicked, `event` available
}
}
- Parameter decorators Used for parameters inside class constructors, e.g. @Inject, Optional
import { Component, Inject } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';
@Component({
selector: 'my-component',
template: '<div>Parameter decorator</div>'
})
export class MyComponent {
constructor(@Inject(MyService) myService) {
console.log(myService);
// MyService
}
}
Ques 12. What is angular CLI?
Angular CLI(Command Line Interface) is a command line interface to scaffold and build angular apps using nodejs style (commonJs) modules. You need to install using below npm command,
npm install @angular/cli@latest
Below are the list of few commands, which will come handy while creating angular projects
Creating New Project: ng new
Generating Components, Directives & Services: ng generate/g The different types of commands would be,
- ng generate class my-new-class: add a class to your application
- ng generate component my-new-component: add a component to your application
- ng generate directive my-new-directive: add a directive to your application
- ng generate enum my-new-enum: add an enum to your application
- ng generate module my-new-module: add a module to your application
- ng generate pipe my-new-pipe: add a pipe to your application
- ng generate service my-new-service: add a service to your application
Running the Project: ng serve
Ques 13. What is the difference between constructor and ngOnInit in Angular?
The Constructor is a default method of the class that is executed when the class is instantiated and ensures proper initialisation of fields in the class and its subclasses. Angular, or better Dependency Injector (DI), analyses the constructor parameters and when it creates a new instance by calling new MyClass() it tries to find providers that match the types of the constructor parameters, resolves them and passes them to the constructor.
ngOnInit is a life cycle hook called by Angular to indicate that Angular is done creating the component.
Mostly we use ngOnInit for all the initialization/declaration and avoid stuff to work in the constructor. The constructor should only be used to initialize class members but shouldn't do actual "work". So you should use constructor() to setup Dependency Injection and not much else. ngOnInit() is better place to "start" - it's where/when components' bindings are resolved.
export class App implements OnInit{
constructor(private myService: MyService){
//called first time before the ngOnInit()
}
ngOnInit(){
//called after the constructor and called after the first ngOnChanges() //e.g. http call...
}
}
Ques 14. What is a service?
A service is used when a common functionality needs to be provided to various modules. Services allow for greater separation of concerns for your application and better modularity by allowing you to extract common functionality out of components.
Let's create a repoService which can be used across components,
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { Http } from '@angular/http';
@Injectable({ // The Injectable decorator is required for dependency injection to work
// providedIn option registers the service with a specific NgModule
providedIn: 'root', // This declares the service with the root app (AppModule)
})
export class RepoService{
constructor(private http: Http){ }
fetchAll(){
return this.http.get('https://api.github.com/repositories');
}
}
The above service uses Http service as a dependency.
Ques 15. What is the purpose of ngFor directive?
We use Angular ngFor directive in the template to display each item in the list. For example, here we iterate over list of users,
<li *ngFor="let user of users">
{{ user }}
</li>
The user variable in the ngFor double-quoted instruction is a template input variable
Ques 16. What is the purpose of ngIf directive in Angular?
Sometimes an app needs to display a view or a portion of a view only under specific circumstances. The Angular ngIf directive inserts or removes an element based on a truthy/falsy condition. Let's take an example to display a message if the user age is more than 18,
<p *ngIf="user.age > 18">You are not eligible for student pass!</p>
Note: Angular isn't showing and hiding the message. It is adding and removing the paragraph element from the DOM. That improves performance, especially in the larger projects with many data bindings.
Ques 17. What are pipes in Angular?
A pipe takes in data as input and transforms it to a desired output. For example, let us take a pipe to transform a component's birthday property into a human-friendly date using date pipe.
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component({
selector: 'app-birthday',
template: `<p>Birthday is {{ birthday | date }}</p>`
})
export class BirthdayComponent {
birthday = new Date(1987, 6, 18); // June 18, 1987
}
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