Equivalent of $compile in Angular 2

Angular 2.3.0 (2016-12-07)

To get all the details check:

• How can I use/create dynamic template to compile dynamic Component with Angular 2.0?

To see that in action:

• observe a working plunker (working with 2.3.0+)

The principals:

1) Create Template
2) Create Component
3) Create Module
4) Compile Module
5) Create (and cache) ComponentFactory
6) use Target to create an Instance of it

A quick overview how to create a Component

createNewComponent (tmpl:string) {
  @Component({
      selector: 'dynamic-component',
      template: tmpl,
  })
  class CustomDynamicComponent  implements IHaveDynamicData {
      @Input()  public entity: any;
  };
  // a component for this particular template
  return CustomDynamicComponent;
}

A way how to inject component into NgModule

createComponentModule (componentType: any) {
  @NgModule({
    imports: [
      PartsModule, // there are 'text-editor', 'string-editor'...
    ],
    declarations: [
      componentType
    ],
  })
  class RuntimeComponentModule
  {
  }
  // a module for just this Type
  return RuntimeComponentModule;
}

A code snippet how to create a ComponentFactory (and cache it)

public createComponentFactory(template: string)
    : Promise<ComponentFactory<IHaveDynamicData>> {    
    let factory = this._cacheOfFactories[template];

    if (factory) {
        console.log("Module and Type are returned from cache")

        return new Promise((resolve) => {
            resolve(factory);
        });
    }

    // unknown template ... let's create a Type for it
    let type   = this.createNewComponent(template);
    let module = this.createComponentModule(type);

    return new Promise((resolve) => {
        this.compiler
            .compileModuleAndAllComponentsAsync(module)
            .then((moduleWithFactories) =>
            {
                factory = _.find(moduleWithFactories.componentFactories
                                , { componentType: type });

                this._cacheOfFactories[template] = factory;

                resolve(factory);
            });
    });
}

A code snippet how to use the above result

  // here we get Factory (just compiled or from cache)
  this.typeBuilder
      .createComponentFactory(template)
      .then((factory: ComponentFactory<IHaveDynamicData>) =>
    {
        // Target will instantiate and inject component (we'll keep reference to it)
        this.componentRef = this
            .dynamicComponentTarget
            .createComponent(factory);

        // let's inject @Inputs to component instance
        let component = this.componentRef.instance;

        component.entity = this.entity;
        //...
    });

The full description with all the details read here, or observe working example

.

.

OBSOLETE - Angular 2.0 RC5 related (RC5 only)

to see previous solutions for previous RC versions, please, search through the history of this post

Note: As @BennyBottema mentions in a comment, DynamicComponentLoader is now deprecated, hence so is this answer.

---

Angular2 doesn't have any $compile equivalent. You can use DynamicComoponentLoader and hack with ES6 classes to compile your code dynamically (see this plunk):

import {Component, DynamicComponentLoader, ElementRef, OnInit} from 'angular2/core'

function compileToComponent(template, directives) {
  @Component({ 
    selector: 'fake', 
    template , directives
  })
  class FakeComponent {};
  return FakeComponent;
}

@Component({
  selector: 'hello',
  template: '<h1>Hello, Angular!</h1>'
})
class Hello {}

@Component({
  selector: 'my-app',
  template: '<div #container></div>',
})
export class App implements OnInit {
  constructor(
    private loader: DynamicComponentLoader, 
    private elementRef: ElementRef,
  ) {}

  ngOnInit() {} {
    const someDynamicHtml = `<hello></hello><h2>${Date.now()}</h2>`;

    this.loader.loadIntoLocation(
      compileToComponent(someDynamicHtml, [Hello])
      this.elementRef,
      'container'
    );
  }
}

But it will work only until html parser is inside angular2 core.