How to wait till the response comes from the $http request, in angularjs?

You should use promises for async operations where you don't know when it will be completed. A promise "represents an operation that hasn't completed yet, but is expected in the future." (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Promise)

An example implementation would be like:

myApp.factory('myService', function($http) {

    var getData = function() {

        // Angular $http() and then() both return promises themselves 
        return $http({method:"GET", url:"/my/url"}).then(function(result){

            // What we return here is the data that will be accessible 
            // to us after the promise resolves
            return result.data;
        });
    };


    return { getData: getData };
});


function myFunction($scope, myService) {
    var myDataPromise = myService.getData();
    myDataPromise.then(function(result) {  

       // this is only run after getData() resolves
       $scope.data = result;
       console.log("data.name"+$scope.data.name);
    });
}

Edit: Regarding Sujoys comment that What do I need to do so that myFuction() call won't return till .then() function finishes execution.

function myFunction($scope, myService) { 
    var myDataPromise = myService.getData(); 
    myDataPromise.then(function(result) { 
         $scope.data = result; 
         console.log("data.name"+$scope.data.name); 
    }); 
    console.log("This will get printed before data.name inside then. And I don't want that."); 
 }

Well, let's suppose the call to getData() took 10 seconds to complete. If the function didn't return anything in that time, it would effectively become normal synchronous code and would hang the browser until it completed.

With the promise returning instantly though, the browser is free to continue on with other code in the meantime. Once the promise resolves/fails, the then() call is triggered. So it makes much more sense this way, even if it might make the flow of your code a bit more complex (complexity is a common problem of async/parallel programming in general after all!)

I was having the same problem and none if these worked for me. Here is what did work though...

app.factory('myService', function($http) {
    var data = function (value) {
            return $http.get(value);
    }

    return { data: data }
});

and then the function that uses it is...

vm.search = function(value) {

        var recieved_data = myService.data(value);

        recieved_data.then(
            function(fulfillment){
                vm.tags = fulfillment.data;
            }, function(){
                console.log("Server did not send tag data.");
        });
    };

The service isn't that necessary but I think its a good practise for extensibility. Most of what you will need for one will for any other, especially when using APIs. Anyway I hope this was helpful.

for people new to this you can also use a callback for example:

In your service:

.factory('DataHandler',function ($http){

   var GetRandomArtists = function(data, callback){
     $http.post(URL, data).success(function (response) {
         callback(response);
      });
   } 
})

In your controller:

    DataHandler.GetRandomArtists(3, function(response){
      $scope.data.random_artists = response;
   });