Using Pipes within ngModel on INPUT Elements in Angular

I've an HTML INPUT field.

<input 
    [(ngModel)]="item.value" 
    name="inputField" 
    type="text" 
/>

and I want to format its value and use an existing pipe:

.... 
[(ngModel)]="item.value | useMyPipeToFormatThatValue" 
....

and get the error message:

Cannot have a pipe in an action expression

How can I use pipes in this context?

Solution 1:

You can't use Template expression operators(pipe, save navigator) within template statement:

(ngModelChange)="Template statements"

(ngModelChange)="item.value | useMyPipeToFormatThatValue=$event"

https://angular.io/guide/template-syntax#template-statements

Like template expressions, template statements use a language that looks like JavaScript. The template statement parser differs from the template expression parser and specifically supports both basic assignment (=) and chaining expressions (with ; or ,).

However, certain JavaScript syntax is not allowed:

• new
• increment and decrement operators, ++ and --
• operator assignment, such as += and -=
• the bitwise operators | and &
• the template expression operators

So you should write it as follows:

<input [ngModel]="item.value | useMyPipeToFormatThatValue" 
      (ngModelChange)="item.value=$event" name="inputField" type="text" />

Plunker Example

Solution 2:

<input [ngModel]="item.value | useMyPipeToFormatThatValue" 
      (ngModelChange)="item.value=$event" name="inputField" type="text" />

The solution here is to split the binding into a one-way binding and an event binding - which the syntax [(ngModel)] actually encompasses. [] is one-way binding syntax and () is event binding syntax. When used together - [()] Angular recognizes this as shorthand and wires up a two-way binding in the form of a one-way binding and an event binding to a component object value.

The reason you cannot use [()] with a pipe is that pipes work only with one-way bindings. Therefore you must split out the pipe to only operate on the one-way binding and handle the event separately.

See Angular Template Syntax for more info.

Solution 3:

<input [ngModel]="item.value | currency" (ngModelChange)="item.value=$event"
name="name" type="text" />

I would like to add one more point to the accepted answer.

If the type of your input control is not text the pipe will not work.

Keep it in mind and save your time.