README

Simple event dispatcher based on PHP-DI.

This library does not aim to be general purpose library or to cover all possible use cases. What this library does aim to be is perfect choice for those who use PHP-DI and prefer to use PHP Definitions.

The goal is to create as decoupled code as possible. The code that uses the dispatcher may not know its listeners, and the other way around, the listeners may not even know that they are actually used as listeners!

Install

EventDispatcher is available via composer:

composer require koriit/eventdispatcher

Versions

This library depends on PHP-DI and is thus affected by compatibility breaks coming from it.

v2

Tested with PHP-DI ^6.0.

v1

Tested with PHP-DI ^5.4.

Usage

You are encouraged to familiarize yourself with Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcherInterface and Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventContextInterface as those two interfaces are everything you need to work with this library.

Basic example:

// configure and build your container

$dispatcher = new EventDispatcher($container);

$listener = function (LoggerInterface $logger, Request $request) {
    $logger->info($request->getMethod().' '.$request->getPathInfo());
};

$dispatcher->addListener("init", $listener, 10);

$dispatcher->dispatch("init");

Naturally since we are using PHP-DI then we would create a definition for Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcherInterface.

A listener may be anything that can be invoked by PHP-DI:

// MyClass.php
class MyClass
{
    public function logRequest(LoggerInterface $logger, Request $request)
    {
        $logger->info($request->getMethod().' '.$request->getPathInfo());
    }
}

// configure and build your container

$dispatcher = $container->get(EventDispatcherInterface::class);

$dispatcher->addListener(ApplicationLifecycle::INITIALIZING, [MyClass::class, 'logRequest'], 10);

$dispatcher->dispatch(ApplicationLifecycle::INITIALIZING);

Even interfaces:

// MyInterface.php
interface MyInterface
{
    public function logRequest(LoggerInterface $logger, Request $request);
}

// MyClass.php
class MyClass implements MyInterface
{
    public function logRequest(LoggerInterface $logger, Request $request)
    {
        $logger->info($request->getMethod().' '.$request->getPathInfo());
    }
}

// configure and build your container

$dispatcher = $container->get(EventDispatcherInterface::class);

$dispatcher->addListener(InitializationEvent::class, [MyInterface::class, 'logRequest'], 10);

$dispatcher->dispatch(InitializationEvent::class, ["event" => new InitializationEvent()]);

For above example to work you need to configure a definition for MyInterface, of course.

Warning:
Event dispatcher doesn't work well with listeners which implement fluent interface or allow for method chaining. For more information, read about stopping dispatchemnt chain below.

Adding listeners

There are 2 ways to subscribe a listener. In both cases you have to specify name of the event and calling priority. The higher the priority value the later the listener will be called. Listeners with the same priority will be called in the order they have been subscribed. You can entirely omit priority parameter as it defaults to 0.

addListener

First, by using addListener method on Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher object.

interface EventDispatcherInterface
{
  // ..

  /**
   * Subscribes a listener to given event with specific priority.
   *
   * Listener must be invokable by PHP-DI.
   *
   * The higher the priority value the later the listener will be called.
   * Listeners with the same priority will be called in the order they have been subscribed.
   *
   * @param mixed  $eventName
   * @param mixed  $listener
   * @param int    $priority
   */
  public function addListener($eventName, $listener, $priority = 0);

  // ...
}

addListeners

Second, by using addListeners method on Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher object.

interface EventDispatcherInterface
{
  // ..

  /**
   * Subscribes listeners in bulk.
   * 
   * Listeners array is a simple structure of 3 levels:
   * - At first level it is associative array where keys are names of registered events
   * - At second level it is indexed array where keys are priority values
   * - At third level it is simple list containing listeners subscribed to given event with given priority
   * 
   * @param array $listeners
   * 
   * @return void
   */
  public function addListeners($listeners);

  // ...
}

Listeners array is a simple structure of 3 levels:

• At first level it is associative array where keys are names of registered events
• At second level it is indexed array where keys are priority values
• At third level it is simple list containing listeners subscribed to given event with given priority

Example:

// listners.php
// namespace and imports...

return [
    CLIApplicationLifecycle::INITIALIZING => [
        0 => [
            [ConfigServiceInterface::class, 'init'],
        ],
        1 => [
            [CommandsServiceInterface::class, 'load'],
        ],
    ],

    CLIApplicationLifecycle::FINALIZING => [
        100 => [
            function (LoggerInterface $logger, InputInterface $input, $exitCode) {
                $logger->info('Returning from command `'.$input.'` with exit code '.$exitCode);
            },
        ],
    ],
];

// ...

$dispatcher->addListeners(include 'listeners.php');

// ...

Dispatchment

Dispatchment is a simple process of invoking all listeners subscribed to dispatched event.

interface EventDispatcherInterface
{
    // ...

    /**
     * Dispatches an event with given name.
     *
     * @param mixed $eventName
     * @param array $parameters
     *
     * @return EventContextInterface
     */
    public function dispatch($eventName, $parameters = []);

    // ...
}

// ..

$dispatcher->dispatch(ApplicationLifecycle::INITIALIZING);

Stopping dispatchment

If any listener in the dispatchment chain returns a value that can be evaluated as true, the dispachment is stopped and all the remaining listeners are skipped. You can also achieve this by calling stop on event context.

While this design simplifies the process and does not require wiring listeners with event dispatcher, it makes it problematic to work with listeners that return values which cannot be interpreted as success or failure. This especially holds true for methods which allow for method chaining or implement fluent interface. To work around this problem you can use stop and ignoreReturnValue methods on event context, though, that requires wiring your listener with event context. Everything is a trade-off, someone once said.

Context

Event context is simple data object holding information about the dispatchment process. See Koriit\EventDispatcher\EventContextInterface for more information.

Parameters

You can pass additional parameters to be used by invoker while injecting listener arguments by name.

// ..

$dispatcher->dispatch(InitializationEvent::class, ["event" => new InitializationEvent()]);

function listener($event) {
  // $event is InitializationEvent object
}

eventName, eventContext, eventDispatcher

There are 3 parameters injected by event dispatcher itself:

1. eventName - name of the event dispatched
2. eventContext - reference to the context object of current dispatchment
3. eventDispatcher - reference to the event dispatcher itself; this allows for nested dispatchments

You cannot override them as using those keys in parameters array causes exception.