Pass a reference to DOM object with ng-click

While you do the following, technically speaking:

<button ng-click="doSomething($event)"></button>

// In controller:
$scope.doSomething = function($event) {
  //reference to the button that triggered the function:
  $event.target
};

This is probably something you don’t want to do as AngularJS philosophy is to focus on model manipulation and let AngularJS do the rendering (based on hints from the declarative UI). Manipulating DOM elements and attributes from a controller is a big no-no in AngularJS world.

You might check this answer for more info: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12431211/1418796