AngularJS routing without the hash '#'

Question

I\'m learning AngularJS and there\'s one thing that really annoys me.

I use $routeProvider to declare routing rules for my application:

Answer 1

Using HTML5 mode requires URL rewriting on server side, basically you have to rewrite all your links to entry point of your application (e.g. index.html). Requiring a tag is also important for this case, as it allows AngularJS to differentiate between the part of the url that is the application base and the path that should be handled by the application. For more information, see AngularJS Developer Guide - Using $location HTML5 mode Server Side.

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Update

How to: Configure your server to work with html5Mode¹

When you have html5Mode enabled, the # character will no longer be used in your urls. The # symbol is useful because it requires no server side configuration. Without #, the url looks much nicer, but it also requires server side rewrites. Here are some examples:

Apache Rewrites

    ServerName my-app

    DocumentRoot /path/to/app

    
        RewriteEngine on

        # Don't rewrite files or directories
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
        RewriteRule ^ - [L]

        # Rewrite everything else to index.html to allow html5 state links
        RewriteRule ^ index.html [L]
    

Nginx Rewrites

server {
    server_name my-app;

    index index.html;

    root /path/to/app;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }
}

Azure IIS Rewrites

Express Rewrites

var express = require('express');
var app = express();

app.use('/js', express.static(__dirname + '/js'));
app.use('/dist', express.static(__dirname + '/../dist'));
app.use('/css', express.static(__dirname + '/css'));
app.use('/partials', express.static(__dirname + '/partials'));

app.all('/*', function(req, res, next) {
    // Just send the index.html for other files to support HTML5Mode
    res.sendFile('index.html', { root: __dirname });
});

app.listen(3006); //the port you want to use

See also

• Advantages/Disadvantages of HTML5 mode vs Hash mode AngularJS
• AngularJS - How to turn off hashbang mode