ee-proxy

Event emitter proxy for easy local listeners cleanup

Note: This module works in browsers and Node.js >= 6.0. Use Proxy and Array polyfills for Internet Explorer

Table of Contents

• Demo
• Installation
  • Node.js
  • Browser
• Overview
• Usage
  • emitterProxy(object, [options])
    • Parameters
    • Return value
  • Example
  • Polyfill
• Build
• Tests
• License

Demo

Try demo on RunKit.

Installation

npm install ee-proxy

Node.js

const emitterProxy = require('ee-proxy');

Browser

<script src="node_modules/ee-proxy/dist/ee-proxy.js">

or minified version

<script src="node_modules/ee-proxy/dist/ee-proxy.min.js">

You can use the module with AMD/CommonJS or just use window.emitterProxy.

Overview

ee-proxy allows you to easily and safely remove listeners attached to event emitter without touching listeners added in other pieces of code. Unlike other similar modules (for example, ultron) this one works seamlessly and allows to call your custom methods on event emitter:

const emitterProxy = require('ee-proxy');
const EventEmitter = require('events');
 
class Game extends EventEmitter {
    start() {
        console.log('Game started');
    }
}
 
const game = emitterProxy(new Game());
game.start(); // Game started
 
console.log(game instanceof EventEmitter); // true
console.log(game instanceof Game); // true

Usage

emitterProxy(emitter, [options])

Parameters

• emitter (EventEmitter)
• [options] (Object)
  • [stopListeningAfterFirstEvent] (boolean) - If true, ee-proxy removes all listeners attached to the wrapped emitter when first event is triggered (might be useful in some cases)
  • [removeMethod] (string) - Name of the method for listeners cleanup (default - stopListening)
  • [addListenerMethods] (string[]) - Methods which are intercepted by ee-proxy for keeping attached to emitter listeners (default - ['on', 'once', 'addListener', 'prependListener', 'prependOnceListener', 'onceAny', 'onAny'])
  • [fields] (string[]) - Option specially for Proxy polyfill (see below)

Return value

(EventEmitter) - Proxy object (which is !== original emitter)

const user = new EventEmitter();
user.once('disconnect', () => console.log('User disconnected'));
 
const wrappedUser = emitterProxy(user);
wrappedUser.once('game:start', () => console.log('User is ready to start the game'));
wrappedUser.once('game:cancel', () => console.log('User cancelled the game'));
wrappedUser.once('disconnect', () => console.log('User disconnected'));
 
wrappedUser.stopListening(); // removes all attached to the wrapped emitter listeners
console.log(user.listenerCount('disconnect')); // 1
 
// wrappedUser.stopListening('game:start'); // you can specify a particular event
// wrappedUser.stopListening('game:start', 'game:cancel'); // or even list several events

Examples

Basic example

const EventEmitter = require('events');
const emitterProxy = require('ee-proxy');
 
const user = new EventEmitter();
user.once('disconnect', () => console.log('User disconnected'));
 
class Game extends EventEmitter {
    constructor(user) {
        super();
        this._user = emitterProxy(user);
        this._user.once('game:cancel', () => this._onUserLeft());
        this._user.once('disconnect', () => this._onUserLeft());
    }
 
    start() {
        this._user.on('game:message', message => console.log('game:message', message));
        this._user.on('game:command', command => console.log('game:command', command));
    }
 
    _onUserLeft() {
        console.log('User left the game');
        this._user.stopListening(); // removes only game listeners ("game:message" and "game:command" events)
        this.emit('canceled');
    }
}
 
const game = new Game(user);
game.start();
 
console.log(user.listenerCount('disconnect')); // 2
console.log(user.listenerCount('game:cancel')); // 1
console.log(user.listenerCount('game:message')); // 1
console.log(user.listenerCount('game:command')); // 1
 
game.once('canceled', () => {
    console.log(user.listenerCount('disconnect')); // 1
    console.log(user.listenerCount('game:cancel')); // 0
    console.log(user.listenerCount('game:message')); // 0
    console.log(user.listenerCount('game:command')); // 0
});
 
user.emit('game:cancel');

Using of "stopListeningAfterFirstEvent" option

Sometimes you may need to listen to several events and you want to react only on first one. For example, your user can have a choice: to start the game, to cancel it or the user can even disconnect. In that case you can call stopListening() in every event listener but it's much easier just to set stopListeningAfterFirstEvent=true:

const user = new EventEmitter();
user.once('disconnect', () => console.log('User disconnected'));
 
const wrappedUser = emitterProxy(user, { stopListeningAfterFirstEvent: true });
wrappedUser.once('game:start', () => console.log('User is ready to start the game'));
wrappedUser.once('game:cancel', () => console.log('User cancelled the game'));
wrappedUser.once('disconnect', () => console.log('User disconnected'));
 
user.emit('game:cancel');
 
console.log(user.listenerCount('disconnect')); // 1
console.log(user.listenerCount('game:start')); // 0
console.log(user.listenerCount('game:cancel')); // 0

Polyfill

Internet Explorer and some other outdated browsers don't support Proxy (see caniuse). In this case you can use polyfill. But keep in mind that all emitter properties you will use must be known at proxy creation time because polyfill seals an emitter object, preventing new properties from being added to it. But you can workaround it by using fields option:

const emitterProxy = require('ee-proxy');
const EventEmitter = require('events');
 
class Game extends EventEmitter {
    start() {
        console.log('Game started');
    }
}
 
const game = emitterProxy(new Game(), {
    fields: 'something'
});
game.something = '123456';

Build

npm install
npm run build

Tests

npm install
npm test

License

MIT