Angular and IE9 stupidity where native methods

Question

In Angular 1.2.0, there is this funny comment:

// IE stupidity! (IE doesn't have apply for some native functions)

It sits on line 9835 in the functionCall function:

  functionCall: function(fn, contextGetter) {
    var argsFn = [];
    if (this.peekToken().text !== ')') {
      do {
        argsFn.push(this.expression());
      } while (this.expect(','));
    }
    this.consume(')');

    var parser = this;

    return function(scope, locals) {
      var args = [];
      var context = contextGetter ? contextGetter(scope, locals) : scope;

      for (var i = 0; i < argsFn.length; i++) {
        args.push(argsFn[i](scope, locals));
      }
      var fnPtr = fn(scope, locals, context) || noop;

      ensureSafeObject(context, parser.text);
      ensureSafeObject(fnPtr, parser.text);

      // IE stupidity! (IE doesn't have apply for some native functions)
      var v = fnPtr.apply
            ? fnPtr.apply(context, args)
            : fnPtr(args[0], args[1], args[2], args[3], args[4]);

      return ensureSafeObject(v, parser.text);
    };
  },

I believe it is causing me pain, but no errors are thrown so I'm having a hard time seeing exactly what native function it might be trying (and failing) to call apply on. Ever since I implemented $q library to use promises to handle async REST calls, IE9 doesn't even make an attempt to call the services (according to the network tab in dev tools). Instead, the promise is immediately rejected. I tried googling for an answer, and looking at angular's docs on using IE, but I'm getting nowhere.

Has anyone had a similar issue with getting promises to work on IE9 using angular's "q-lite"? Does anyone know what this silly comment is referring to specifically?

Answer 1

I believe I figured it out through a ton of trial and error. It seems the issue, in my case, was that I was using the built-in q library for promises... specifically q.all([]):

$q.all([
  firstRequest.$promise,
  secondRequest.$promise,
  thirdRequest.$promise,
  moreRequets.$promise
]).then(function() {
  //do stuff
});

While I still have not found out what specific operations the angular code refers to when it says some native functions, I found that the docs for function.apply() have the following caveat:

Note: Most browsers, including Chrome 14 and Internet Explorer 9, still do not accept array-like objects and will throw an exception.

Whatever the specifics, removing my reference to $q.all solved it for me. I hope this helps anyone who has this issue in the future. If someone happens to encounter another case where this IE behavior chokes up angular, perhaps they would be so kind as to comment below or add an answer.

FYI, I am currently at angular 1.2.14.