ng2-charts update labels and data

Like Deyd pointed out before, this is caused by a combination of Angular 2+'s change detection and a bug in ng2-charts.

According to my own observations (correct me if I'm wrong), Angular merges several changes within a very short timeframe into a single collection (changes: SimpleChanges) when ngOnChanges is called.

Unfortunately, ng2-charts only checks if the dataset has been changed with this collection and updates it. Otherwise it completely rebuilds the entire chart. However, because of the way the change detection works, more than one property might have been changed. Then, only the dataset gets updated even if the labels and possibly other properties have been updated as well. See ngOnChanges in ng2-charts: valor-software/ng2-charts/src/charts/charts.ts

And if you don't want to have a separate copy of ng2-charts in your app and fix the problem yourself, a possible workaround for this problem is to set the dataset with a short delay using JavaScript's built-in function setTimeout(callback: () => void, delay: number).

Before:

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `
  <select (change)="onChange($event.target.value)">
    <option value="" disabled selected>Select your option</option>
    <option value="0">Option 0</option>
    <option value="1">Option 1</option>
  </select>

  <canvas baseChart
          chartType="bar"
          [datasets]="barChartData"
          [labels]="barChartLabels"
          [colors]="barChartColors">
  </canvas>
  `
})
export class AppComponent implements OnInit {
  chartData: string[];
  chartLabels: string[];
  chartColors: string[];

  onChange(id: string) {
    getFromApiById(id)
      .then(result => this._setChart(result.data, result.labels, result.colors));
  }

  private _setChart(data: string[], labels: string[], colors: string[]) {
    this.chartData = data;
    this.chartLabels = labels;
    this.chartColors = colors;
  }
}

After:

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `
  <select (change)="onChange($event.target.value)">
    <option value="" disabled selected>Select your option</option>
    <option value="0">Option 0</option>
    <option value="1">Option 1</option>
  </select>

  <canvas baseChart
          chartType="bar"
          [datasets]="barChartData"
          [labels]="barChartLabels"
          [colors]="barChartColors">
  </canvas>
  `
})
export class AppComponent implements OnInit {
  chartData: string[];
  chartLabels: string[];
  chartColors: string[];

  onChange(id: string) {
    getFromApiById(id)
      .then(result => this._setChart(result.data, result.labels, result.colors));
  }

  private _setChart(data: string[], labels: string[], colors: string[]) {
    this.chartLabels = labels;
    this.chartColors = colors;

    setTimeout(() => {
      this.chartData = data;
    }, 50);
  }
}

Apparently, if you do not modify the original reference to the labels array, it seems to work, at least for me. I mean, if you want a completely different set of labels, you should do something like this:

In the template:

<canvas baseChart
  [datasets]="lineChartData"
  [labels]="lineChartLabels"
  [options]="lineChartOptions"
  [chartType]="'line'"></canvas>

In the ts component:

this.lineChartLabels.length = 0;
for (let i = tempLabels.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
  this.lineChartLabels.push(tempLabels[i]);
}

Or, using new ECMAScript syntax:

this.lineChartLabels.length = 0;
this.lineChartLabels.push(...tempLabels);

The key is maybe the this.lineChartLabels.length = 0; statement, which practically 'empties' your array by setting its length to 0, without modifying the reference. Hope this helps!

Recently i had to use ng2-charts and i was having a very big issues with updating my data untill i found this sollution:

<div class="chart">
    <canvas baseChart [datasets]="datasets_lines" [labels]="labels_line" [colors]="chartColors" [options]="options" [chartType]="lineChartType">
    </canvas>
</div>

and here what i have in my component :

import { Component, OnInit, Pipe, ViewChild, ElementRef } from '@angular/core';
import { BaseChartDirective } from 'ng2-charts/ng2-charts';

@Component({
    moduleId: module.id,
    selector: 'product-detail',
    templateUrl: 'product-detail.component.html'
})

export class ProductDetailComponent {
    @ViewChild(BaseChartDirective) chart: BaseChartDirective;

    private datasets_lines: { label: string, backgroundColor: string, borderColor: string, data: Array<any> }[] = [
        {
        label: "Quantities",
        data: Array<any>()
    }
];

private labels_line = Array<any>();

private options = {
    scales: {
        yAxes: [{
            ticks: {
                beginAtZero: true
            }
        }]
    }
};


constructor() { }
ngOnInit() {

    this.getStats();

}
getStats() {

    this._statsService.getStatistics(this.startDate, this.endDate, 'comparaison')
        .subscribe(
        res => {
            console.log('getStats success');
            this.stats = res;

            this.labels_line = this.getDates();
            this.datasets_lines = [];

            let arr: any[];
            arr = [];
            for (let stat of this.stats) {
                arr.push(stat.quantity);
            }

            this.datasets_lines.push({
                label: 'title',
                data: arr
            });

            this.refresh_chart();

        },
        err => {
            console.log("getStats failed from component");
        },
        () => {
            console.log('getStats finished');
        });
}

refresh_chart() {
    setTimeout(() => {
        console.log(this.datasets_lines_copy);
        console.log(this.datasets_lines);
        if (this.chart && this.chart.chart && this.chart.chart.config) {
            this.chart.chart.config.data.labels = this.labels_line;
            this.chart.chart.config.data.datasets = this.datasets_lines;
            this.chart.chart.update();
        }
    });
}

getDates() {
    let dateArray: string[] = [];
    let currentDate: Date = new Date();
    currentDate.setTime(this.startDate.getTime());
    let pushed: string;
    for (let i = 1; i < this.daysNum; i++) {
        pushed = currentDate == null ? '' : this._datePipe.transform(currentDate, 'dd/MM/yyyy');
        dateArray.push(pushed);
        currentDate.setTime(currentDate.getTime() + 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
    }
    re

turn dateArray;
    }    
}

i m sure this is the right way to do it, and hope this would be helpfull