clear on input element not updating model

It does not seem like using clear on a input element updates the ngmodel(and triggers validation). The input field is empty in the page but the model hasn’t changed value.

<input [(ngModel)]="model">
<h1>{{model}}</h1>

it('', () => {
    element(by.css('input')).clear()
    expect(element(by.css('h1')).getText()).toEqual('');
  });

Expected ‘app works!’ to equal ‘’.

• Node Version: 6.10.0
• Protractor Version: 5.1.1
• Angular Version: 2.4.9
• Browser(s): Chrome

[kenborge]

I see your point that the underlying reason the model isn’t updated is the way angular 2 works, and that it doesn’t trigger by the way clear is implemented. However seeing as protractor is a e2e framework for angular applications shouldn’t that make it a protractor issue if parts of its api doesn’t work anymore with core angular 2 mechanics(ngModel)

[seanmay]

You could make a case for it, as a feature, but then assuming you are calling .clear() on text inputs, and assuming that you can clear it to '', how do you support .clear() on dates, numbers, ranges, colours, et cetera, without introducing some concept of null or undefined or incompatible (or incorrect) assumptions that a program might not have had before, which comes from Protractor making business logic decisions based on your app?

I agree that it’s problematic to have people assume that the full range of all WebDriver APIs is going to implicitly do the right thing in Angular.

I feel like the eventual solution to that is to provide a subset of the APIs, rather than advertising Protractor as Angular-wrapped WebDriver and leaking abstractions which don’t map 1:1 into the Angular view model.

In this case, it would be to remove clear, and force people to set the value through regular UI input interaction methods, rather than to try to intuit what the application really wants there.

Then there are the backwards-compatibility concerns, to ensure that AngularJS and Angular continue to behave appropriately. There is more we can do to ensure that AngularJS and Angular applications each get the APIs they should expect, but that’s a very big and breaking undertaking.