Avoid using $scope.$parent and instead utilize Javascript's prototypal inheritance to prevent potential issues in your code. Directly accessing the parent can lead to errors if the directive/controller is moved higher up in the scope hierarchy, resulting in data being located on $scope.$parent.$parent.
It is recommended to never write directly to properties on the scope, but rather to objects on the scope object.
For example:
$scope.$parent.value = 'x';
Then:
console.log($scope.value);
This will output x in the console. However, if you then do:
$scope.value = 'y';
You are creating a new property on the child scope rather than modifying the value property on the parent scope. Therefore, $scope.$parent.value will still hold the value x.
To address this issue, you can use:
$scope.$parent.data = {value: 'x'};
console.log($scope.data.value); // outputs x
$scope.data.value = 'y';
console.log($scope.data.value); // outputs y
console.log($scope.$parent.data.value); // also outputs y
The reason this approach works is that instead of creating a new value property on the child scope, it first checks for the existence of the data property. Since data is not found on the child scope, it traverses the prototype chain ($parent) to locate the data object on the parent scope and sets the value property within that object.