Type-Safe Event Dispatcher

This is a simple event dispatcher which implements the mediator pattern, where a well-known centralised object is available to send and recieve messages.

Messages sent (with .dispatch()) have an assigned event type (or event key) which can be any type (Symbol, string, object, function etc.). Recievers can subscribe (with .addListener()) to these specifict event types.

WHY?

There are too many Event Dispatcher implementations on the net. Yet here I am making another one. To be honest a fully functional event dispatcher can be made with 3 lines of code. What this package additionally provides are a set of type declarations attached to the dispatcher class. With these type declarations your IDE will provide code completion for all possible events.

Usage

import { Dispatcher } from 'ts-dispatcher';

// make a type which lists all possible events
type DispatchedEvents =
  Dispatcher.Event<'event-key-1', string, number> |
  Dispatcher.Event<'event-key-2', string> |
  Dispatcher.Event<'event-key-3', number>;

// create a dispatcher
const dispatcher = new Dispatcher<DispatchedEvents>();

dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-1', 'abc', 123); // OK.
dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-1', 'abc'); // type error: missing third parameter (number).

dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-2', 'abc'); // OK.
dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-2', 'abc', 123); // type error: unknown third parameter (number).

dispatcher.addListener('event-key-3', (param1) => console.log(param1)); // OK.
dispatcher.addListener('event-key-3', (param1) => console.log(JSON.parse(param1))); // type error: param1 is not a string (JSON.parse expects a string).
dispatcher.addListener('event-key-3', (param1, param2) => console.log(param1)); // type error: unknown argument param2.

dispatcher.addListener('event-key-4', () => console.log(4)); // type error: unknown 'event-key-4' argument.

Usage with interfaces

// src/component.ts

import { dispatcher } from './dispatcher.ts';

declare global {
  interface DispatchedEvents {
    'event-key-1': [string, number];
  }
}

dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-1', 'abc', 123); // OK.
dispatcher.dispatch('event-key-1', 'abc'); // type error: missing third parameter (number).

// src/dispatcher.ts

import { Dispatcher } from 'ts-dispatcher';

export const dispatcher = new Dispatcher<Dispatcher.FromInterface<DispatchedEvents>>();

Note: With interfaces only string keys are possible as event keys, but allows you to separate the dispatched event types into modules.

Docs

new Dispatcher<Events>()

The Events generic parameter expects a touple type ([T1, T2]) where T1 is the event key and T2 is an array of the expected arguments of the dispatched message.

Example:

const dispatcher = new Dispatcher<['hello', [string, number]] | ['world', [string]] | ['no-params', []]>();

There is a helper type to make touples more readable: Dispatcher.Event<Key, P1, P2, ...>

Example:

const dispatcher = new Dispatcher<Dispatcher.Event<'hello', string, number> | Dispatcher.Event<'world', string> | Dispatcher.Event<'no-params'>>();

dispatcher.dispatch(eventKey, param1, param2, ...)

Notifies all registered event listeners passing the param1, param2, ... to the listener as arguments.

dispatcher.addListener(eventKey, listener)

Register a new event listener. Registering the same listener for the same event type multiple times is ignored.

dispatcher.removeListener(eventKey, listener)

Removes a registered event listener.