Top 20 Angular interview questions cover fundamental concepts and advanced
topics, ranging from basic building blocks like components and services to more
complex ideas like change detection and performance optimization. Here are
some of the most common questions you might encounter.
1. What is Angular?
Angular is a popular, open-source, component-based framework for building
client-side, single-page applications (SPAs) with TypeScript and HTML. It was
created and is maintained by Google.
2. Differentiate between Angular and AngularJS.
Angular is a complete rewrite of AngularJS. The key differences include:
Language: Angular uses TypeScript, while AngularJS used JavaScript.
Architecture: Angular has a component-based architecture, whereas
AngularJS used the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.
Performance: Angular is significantly faster and more performant.
Mobile Support: Angular is mobile-friendly; AngularJS is not.
3. What are the key building blocks of an Angular application?
The main building blocks are:
Modules: Containers that group related components, services, and pipes.
Components: The fundamental building blocks that have a template, a
class, and a selector.
Templates: The HTML view of an Angular component.
Metadata: Used to decorate a class to configure the expected behavior.
Data Binding: The synchronization of data between the component and
the view.
Directives: Classes that modify the DOM's structure or behavior.
Services: Classes that provide reusable functionality and data across
components.
Dependency Injection (DI): A design pattern that provides a class with
its dependencies from an external source, rather than the class creating
them itself.
4. What are Directives in Angular?
Directives are classes that add new behavior to elements in an Angular
application. There are three types:
Components: A special kind of directive with its own template.
Structural Directives: Change the DOM layout by adding, removing, or
manipulating elements (e.g., *ngIf, *ngFor).
Attribute Directives: Change the appearance or behavior of an element
(e.g., ngClass, ngStyle).
5. What are Angular Modules (NgModule)?
An NgModule is a class marked with the @NgModule decorator. It's a logical unit
that groups related components, directives, pipes, and services. The root
module, conventionally named AppModule, bootstraps the entire application.
6. Explain Data Binding in Angular.
Data binding is the communication between the component's data model and
the view (template). It ensures that changes in one are reflected in the other.
There are four main types:
Interpolation ({{ }}): One-way binding from component to view.
Property Binding ([ ]): One-way binding from component to a DOM
property.
Event Binding (( )): One-way binding from view to a component method
(e.g., a button click).
Two-Way Binding ([( )]): A combination of property and event binding
that synchronizes data in both directions.
7. What is Dependency Injection?
Dependency Injection (DI) is a design pattern where a class receives its
dependencies from an external source. Angular has its own DI framework that
provides instances of services to components, making the code more modular,
reusable, and testable.
8. What's the difference between a constructor and ngOnInit?
The constructor is a standard TypeScript feature that is executed when the
component class is instantiated. It's primarily used for injecting services.
**ngOnInit** is an Angular lifecycle hook that is called after Angular has
initialized the component's data-bound properties. It's the recommended place to
perform initialization logic like fetching data from a server.
9. Describe the Angular Component Lifecycle Hooks.
A component instance has a lifecycle that starts when Angular creates it and
ends when it destroys it. Lifecycle hooks are methods that allow you to tap into
these key moments. Common hooks include:
ngOnChanges: Called when an input property changes.
ngOnInit: Called after a component is initialized.
ngDoCheck: Called during every change detection cycle.
ngOnDestroy: Called just before the component is destroyed.
10. What are Services and how are they used?
Services are classes that encapsulate business logic or shared functionality. They
are typically used for tasks that don't directly involve the UI, like fetching data
from an API, logging, or authentication. Services are designed to be reusable
and are made available to components through dependency injection.
11. Explain the purpose of Observables and RxJS in Angular.
Observables are a powerful way to handle asynchronous data streams. They can
emit multiple values over time and are a core part of Angular's reactive
programming model. RxJS (Reactive Extensions for JavaScript) is a library
that provides the implementation for Observables and a rich set of operators
(like map, filter, catchError) to work with these streams.
12. What are Angular Pipes?
Pipes are used to transform data directly within an HTML template. For
example, you can use a pipe to format a date, change a string to uppercase, or
format a number as currency. Angular provides built-in pipes, and you can also
create custom pipes.
13. What is routing in Angular?
The Angular Router enables navigation between different components, allowing
for the creation of a single-page application (SPA). It maps URL paths to specific
components, so when a user clicks a link, the router displays the corresponding
component without a full page reload.
14. Explain lazy loading in Angular.
Lazy loading is a performance optimization technique that loads feature
modules only when they are needed. Instead of loading the entire application's
code at startup, the router loads modules on demand as the user navigates to a
specific route. This significantly reduces the initial load time of the application.
15. What are the differences between Template-Driven and Reactive
Forms?
Template-Driven Forms: Rely on directives in the template (ngModel,
ngForm) to create the form model implicitly. They are simpler for basic
forms but can be less scalable and testable.
Reactive Forms: Build the form model explicitly in the component class
using FormControl, FormGroup, and FormArray. They are more explicit,
testable, and scalable, making them the preferred choice for complex
forms.
16. What is Change Detection in Angular?
Change detection is Angular's mechanism for synchronizing the component's
data model with the view. When a component's data changes, Angular
automatically detects the change and updates the DOM to reflect the new state.
Angular's default strategy is to check all components from the root down, but
you can optimize this with the OnPush change detection strategy.
17. What is AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation?
AOT compilation is a build-time process that converts your Angular components
and templates into efficient JavaScript code before the browser downloads and
runs it. The main advantages are faster rendering, fewer AJAX requests for
template files, and better security. The alternative is JIT (Just-in-Time)
compilation, which happens in the browser at runtime.
18. What are Route Guards?
Route guards are interfaces that control access to a route. They can prevent
navigation to or from a route based on certain conditions. Common use cases
include:
CanActivate: Determines if a user can navigate to a route.
CanDeactivate: Determines if a user can leave a route.
CanLoad: Determines if a module can be lazy-loaded.
19. How do you handle HTTP requests and errors in Angular?
Angular provides the HttpClient module for making HTTP requests. You use
services to encapsulate the API logic, and you handle the asynchronous
responses using Observables. To handle errors, you can use RxJS operators like
catchError to intercept and manage a failed request.
20. What are Angular Interceptors?
HTTP Interceptors are a feature of the HttpClient module that allows you to
intercept and transform HTTP requests and responses. They are useful for
centralizing tasks like adding an authentication token to every outgoing request,
logging, or handling errors globally.
