Problem with <select ng-options = "..." / ">

I tried to execute a simple function with AngularJS as shown below. In the product list, when the user clicks an item and clicks the "Delete" button, the item will be removed.

HTML:

<div ng-app="app" ng-controller="MainController">
    <div>
      <select ng-options="item.name for item in items" ng-model="currentItem" size="5" style="width: 200px"></select>
    </div>
    <button ng-click="removeItem()">Remove</button>
  </div>

      

        
        
        
      

    

and the script looks like this:

angular.module('app', [])
  .controller('MainController', function($scope) {
    $scope.items = [{
      name: 'item1'
    }, {
      name: 'item2'
    }, {
      name: 'item3'
    }];

    $scope.currentItem = $scope.items[0];

    $scope.removeItem = function() {
      var index = $scope.items.indexOf($scope.currentItem);
      $scope.items.splice(index, 1);
    };

  });

      

        
        
        
      

    

The problem is that when I tried to remove an item (i.e. item2), the list always shows an empty item at the first position. When I click "item1" or "item3" the empty item disappears.

I know this is called ng-model="currentItem"

in the html. The element that currentItem points to deletion, currentItem points to null. So I decided to change the removeItem function as shown below to solve this problem.

$scope.removeItem = function() {
      var index = $scope.items.indexOf($scope.currentItem);
      $scope.items.splice(index, 1);

      /* PART 1 begin */
      if ($scope.items.length === 0) {
        $scope.currentItem = null;
      } else {
        if (index >= 0 && index <= $scope.items.length - 1) {
          $scope.currentItem = $scope.items[index];
        } else {
          $scope.currentItem = $scope.items[$scope.items.length - 1];
        }
      }
      /* PART 1 end */
    };

      

        
        
        
      

    

I would like to know if there is any easy way (like a directive) in AngularJS to do the action in PART 1 automatically.