Accessing Other Components

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@ViewChild and @ViewChildren
The @ViewChild and @ViewChildren decorators provide access to the instantiated class of child components, allowing you to interact with non-private fields programmatically.
The @ViewChild is a decorator function that takes the name of a component class as its input and finds its selector in the template of the containing component to bind to. @ViewChild can also be passed a template reference variable.
For example, we bind the class AlertComponent to its selector <app-alert> and assign it to the property alert. This allows us to gain access to class methods, like show().
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import { Component, ViewChild } from '@angular/core';
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import { AlertComponent } from './alert.component';
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​
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@Component({
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    selector: 'app-root',
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    template: `
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    <app-alert>My alert</app-alert>
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      <button (click)="showAlert()">Show Alert</button>`
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})
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export class AppComponent {
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  @ViewChild(AlertComponent) alert: AlertComponent;
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​
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  showAlert() {
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    this.alert.show();
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  }
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}
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In the interest of separation of concerns, we'd normally want to have child elements take care of their own behaviors and pass in an @Input(). However, it might be a useful construct in keeping things generic.
When there are multiple embedded components in the template, we can also use @ViewChildren. It collects a list of instances of the Alert component, stored in a QueryList object that behaves similar to an array.
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import { Component, QueryList, ViewChildren } from '@angular/core';
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import { AlertComponent } from './alert.component';
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​
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@Component({
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    selector: 'app-root',
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    template: `
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    <app-alert ok="Next" (close)="showAlert(2)">
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      Step 1: Learn angular
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    </app-alert>
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    <app-alert ok="Next" (close)="showAlert(3)">
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      Step 2: Love angular
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    </app-alert>
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    <app-alert ok="Close">
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      Step 3: Build app
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    </app-alert>
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      <button (click)="showAlert(1)">Show steps</button>`
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})
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export class AppComponent {
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  @ViewChildren(AlertComponent) alerts: QueryList<AlertComponent>;
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  alertsArr = [];
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​
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  ngAfterViewInit() {
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    this.alertsArr = this.alerts.toArray();
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  }
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​
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  showAlert(step) {
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    this.alertsArr[step - 1].show(); // step 1 is alert index 0
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  }
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}
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As shown above, given a class type to @ViewChild and @ViewChildren a child component or a list of children component are selected respectively using their selector from the template. In addition both @ViewChild and @ViewChildren can be passed a selector string:
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@Component({
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    selector: 'app-root',
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    template: `
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    <app-alert #first ok="Next" (close)="showAlert(2)">
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      Step 1: Learn angular
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    </app-alert>
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    <app-alert ok="Next" (close)="showAlert(3)">
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      Step 2: Love angular
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    </app-alert>
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    <app-alert ok="Close">
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      Step 3: Build app
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    </app-alert>
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      <button (click)="showAlert(1)">Show steps</button>`
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})
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export class AppComponent {
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  @ViewChild('first') alert: AlertComponent;
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  @ViewChildren(AlertComponent) alerts: QueryList<AlertComponent>;
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  // ...
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}
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Note that view children will not be set until the ngAfterViewInit lifecycle hook is called.
@ContentChild and @ContentChildren
@ContentChild and @ContentChildren work the same way as the equivalent @ViewChild and @ViewChildren, however, the key difference is that @ContentChild and @ContentChildren select from the projected content within the component.
Again, note that content children will not be set until the ngAfterContentInit component lifecycle hook.
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Component Lifecycle
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Last modified 3mo ago
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@ViewChild and @ViewChildren
@ContentChild and @ContentChildren