Resolving Angular not updating an image src when ng-src is empty

The Angular ngSrc directive serves to properly set an image src via Angular. As anything in Angular, it updates the image as soon as the contained Angular expression changes. However, when the ng-src attribute is empty, Angular will not empty the src attribute. To overcome this, use the trick below.

<img ng-src="{{ element.image || '//:0' }}" />

Background

The ngSrc directive explicitly returns when the attribute value is falsy. As a workaround, set a "blank" image src when the image is empty. As somebody on Stackoverflow Show archive.org snapshot writes, //:0 serves this purpose: It adopts the current protocol, omits the hostname and sets the port to zero, which is invalid and should be killed by the network layer.

As a result, Angular should now correctly empty the src attribute when ng-src empties.

Dominik Schöler Over 9 years ago