What is events?
The 'events' npm package provides a way to implement the Observer pattern, which is a software design pattern that allows an object (known as a 'subject') to maintain a list of its dependents (known as 'observers') and automatically notify them of any state changes, usually by calling one of their methods. It is the same EventEmitters API as used by Node.js core.
What are events's main functionalities?
EventEmitter creation
This code sample shows how to import the 'events' package and create a new instance of an EventEmitter.
const EventEmitter = require('events');
const myEmitter = new EventEmitter();
Event listening
This code sample demonstrates how to listen for an 'event' and execute a callback function when the event is emitted.
myEmitter.on('event', () => {
console.log('an event occurred!');
});
Event emitting
This code sample shows how to emit an 'event', which will trigger any associated event listeners.
myEmitter.emit('event');
Once listener
This code sample demonstrates how to set up a listener that will only be called once for the next time the event is emitted.
myEmitter.once('event', () => {
console.log('this event will be logged only once');
});
Removing listeners
This code sample shows how to remove a specific listener from an event.
const callback = () => console.log('event occurred');
myEmitter.on('event', callback);
// ...
myEmitter.removeListener('event', callback);
Other packages similar to events
mitt
Mitt is a tiny functional event emitter / pubsub. It provides the same basic functionality as 'events' but with a smaller footprint and a more functional approach.
eventemitter3
EventEmitter3 is a high performance EventEmitter. It has a similar API to 'events' but is optimized for performance and has no dependencies.
wolfy87-eventemitter
Wolfy87's EventEmitter is an implementation of the EventEmitter module found in Node.js but for the browser. It offers similar functionality to 'events' but is designed to work in a browser environment.