I'm trying to encapsulate the events in a service in order to implement a mechanics to subscribe / unsubscribe the listeners when a controller's scope is destroyed. This because I have been using the rootScope.$on in the following way:
if(!$rootScope.$$listeners['event']) {
$rootScope.$on('event', function(ev, data){
// do some...
});
}
or
$scope.$on('$destroy', function(ev, data){
// unsubscribe the listener
});
So I just need one listener of this event, I need to delete the existing listener when the controller is no longer alive, because the function I registered earlier is still being triggered.
So I need to implement a $destroy event listener on my controller, to destroy the listener when the scope is destroyed, but I don't want to do that code each time I create an event.
That's why I want to create a service in where I'm going to encapsulate the events.
angular.module('core').factory('event', [
function() {
var service = {};
service.events = {};
service.on = function(scope, eventId, callback) {
scope.$on('$destroy', function(ev, other){
//unsubscribe
});
service.events[eventId] = callback;
// scope = null; I guess ?
};
service.emit = function(eventId, data){
if (service.events[eventId])
service.events[eventId](data);
else
return new Error('The event is not subscribed');
};
return service;
}
]);
This could be done using $rootScope instead of my own methods but encapsulating the $on and $emit of $rootScope, but at the end I'll have the same issue here.
So these are my questions:
- Is a good practice to pass the scope ref value to a service?
- What is the meaning of $$destroyed? when this is true means that angularJS has no internal references to the instance?
- Should I do a scope = null in my service to let GC delete the object or does angularJS handle an explicit delete?
- Is there a better way to do what I want?
What you are trying to accomplish is basically an event bus.
You have also described very well what is wrong with the current implementation.
A different way to approach the problem is to decorate the $rootScope with your bus (or any other event bus for that matter). Here is how:
app.config(function ($provide) {
$provide.decorator('$rootScope', ['$delegate', '$$bus', function ($delegate, $$bus) {
Object.defineProperty($delegate.constructor.prototype, '$bus', {
get: function () {
var self = this;
return {
subscribe: function () {
var sub = $$bus.subscribe.apply($$bus, arguments);
self.$on('$destroy',
function () {
console.log("unsubscribe!");
sub.unsubscribe();
});
},
publish: $$bus.publish
};
},
enumerable: false
});
return $delegate;
}]);
});
Considering the following $$bus implementation (kept basic for simplicity):
app.factory('$$bus', function () {
var api = {};
var events = {};
api.subscribe = function (event) {
if (!events.hasOwnProperty(event.name)) {
events[event.name] = [event];
} else {
events[event.name].push(event);
}
return {
unsubscribe: function () {
api.unsubscribe(event);
}
}
};
api.publish = function (eventName, data) {
if (events.hasOwnProperty(eventName)) {
console.log(eventName);
angular.forEach(events[eventName], function (subscriber) {
subscriber.callback.call(this, data);
});
}
};
api.unsubscribe = function (event) {
if (events.hasOwnProperty(event.name)) {
events[event.name].splice(events[event.name].indexOf(event), 1);
if (events[event.name].length == 0) {
delete events[event.name];
}
}
};
return api;
});
Now all you have to do is subscribe or publish events. The unsubscribe will take place automatically (when the $scope is destroyed):
$scope.$bus.subscribe({
name: 'test', callback: function (data) {
console.log(data);
}
});
And later on publish an event:
$scope.$bus.publish('test', {name: "publishing event!"});
An important point to make is that the events themselves are subscribed to each individual $scope and not on the $rootScope. That is how you "know" which $scope to release.
I think it answers your question. With that in mind, you can obviously make this mechanism much sophisticated (such as controller event listener released when a view routed, unsubscribe automatically only to certain events, etc.).
Good luck!
** This solution is taken form Here which uses a different bus framework (other then that it is the same).