Q:

Angular UI-Router update parent scope from child

here is a sample setup for my app
 .state('base', {
      controller: 'resourceCtrl'
      view: 'resource.html'
 }
 .state('base.edit', {
      controller: 'resourceEditCtrl'
      view: 'resourceEdit.html'
 }

Inside resourceCtrl, I assign $scope.resource to a promise of an api call to get a single resource.
 API.getResource(id).then(resource){
      $scope.resource = resource;
 }

In resourceEditCtrl, I then use this inherited $scope variable of $scope.resource to edit it
 $scope.$watch('resource', function(r){
      if(r){
           $scope.resourceToEdit = angular.copy(r);

           $scope.save = function(){
                //some changes are made to $scope.resourceToEdit in the view
                //eg: change the title, description, etc
                
                ////////
                //////// THIS IS THE PART THAT DOESNT WORK
                ////////
                //////// try to update parent $scope.resource with newly saved value
                $scope.resource = $scope.resourceToEdit;

                $scope.transitionTo('base');

           }
      }
 }

When i transition back to baseCtrl, the newly saved values are gone, and its still in the original state. If I refresh, the values will be updated because of the call to the API, but ideally, I would be able to update the parent scope variable to be synced with the newly saved value, so a refresh isn't necessary.
Is this possible?
EDIT:
Here is a demo plunkr
http://plnkr.co/edit/8OK1VR8tLN4BAyQaMs3d?p=preview

A:

You should be able to to something like:
$scope.$parent.resource = $scope.resourceToEdit

given that base is the parent of your resource controller.

A:

The more angular way to do this is to create a service that gets injected into both of your controllers.  Since the injected object is a singleton the data is shared/updated when each controller updates the data:
http://fdietz.github.io/recipes-with-angular-js/controllers/sharing-code-between-controllers-using-services.html

