Confusing Type Coercion with ng-value

[jongunter]

What is the current behavior?
When a model value is null or undefined, a radio button <input> with ng-value="false" won't be shown as checked.

When the model value is "" or 0, a radio button <input> with ng-value="false" will be shown as checked.

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce and if possible a minimal demo of the problem.
http://plnkr.co/edit/oY0YipxdTJtjjZDDCDDu?p=preview

What is the expected behavior?
I understand the intent here (need for a "blank" value), but if type coercion is going to happen, shouldn't we either go all in, or not do it at all? This "halfway" type coercion is confusing. There should be some sort of option for ng-value that lets you turn on/off strict type coercion.

[Narretz]

To determine the checkedness, the $viewValue and the ngValue are compared. In 1.5.8 this comparison is not strict. This has been fixed in master and the upcoming 1.5.9.
This makes more sense than the non-strict comparison, because ngValue is an Angular expression.

In 1.5.9, this might actually be a breaking change, but going forward this is the right thing to do,

I understand the intent here (need for a "blank" value)

What do you mean by that?

[jongunter]

Gotcha! thanks.

As far as a "blank" value goes, say you have two radio buttons, one with ng-value="true" and the other with ng-value="false". When you load the form, you may want both radio buttons to be initially unchecked (thus forcing the user to consider the options and choose a value). ng-value="false" not being checked when the $viewValue is undefined or nullsolves that problem.

[Narretz]

That's right.
I have to correct myself. Unfortunately, this is not gonna be part of 1.6, as this is frozen for breaking changes.