You can not select more than 25 topics Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
 
 

3.0 KiB

Component provides the event and behavior features, in addition to the property feature which is implemented in its parent class Object.

Event is a way to "inject" custom code into existing code at certain places. For example, a comment object can trigger an "add" event when the user adds a comment. We can write custom code and attach it to this event so that when the event is triggered, our custom code will be executed.

An event is identified by a name (unique within the class it is defined). Event names are case-sensitive.

An event can be attached with one or multiple PHP callbacks, called event handlers. One can call trigger() to raise an event. When an event is raised, the attached event handlers will be invoked automatically in the order they are attached to the event.

To attach an event handler to an event, call on(). For example,

$comment->on('add', function($event) {
    // send email notification
});

In the above, we attach an anonymous function to the "add" event of the comment. Valid event handlers include:

  • anonymous function: function($event) { ... }
  • object method: array($object, 'handleAdd')
  • static method: array('Page', 'handleAdd')
  • global function: 'handleAdd'

The signature of an event handler should be like the following:

function foo($event)

where $event is an Event object which includes parameters associated with the event.

One can also attach an event handler to an event when configuring a component with a configuration array. The syntax is like the following:

array(
    'on add' => function($event) { ... }
)

where on add stands for attaching an event to the add event.

One can call getEventHandlers() to retrieve all event handlers that are attached to a specified event. Because this method returns a Vector object, we can manipulate this object to attach/detach event handlers, or adjust their relative orders.

$handlers = $comment->getEventHandlers('add');
$handlers->insertAt(0, $callback); // attach a handler as the first one
$handlers[] = $callback;           // attach a handler as the last one
unset($handlers[0]);               // detach the first handler

A behavior is an instance of Behavior or its child class. A component can be attached with one or multiple behaviors. When a behavior is attached to a component, its public properties and methods can be accessed via the component directly, as if the component owns those properties and methods.

To attach a behavior to a component, declare it in behaviors(), or explicitly call attachBehavior. Behaviors declared in behaviors() are automatically attached to the corresponding component.

One can also attach a behavior to a component when configuring it with a configuration array. The syntax is like the following:

array(
    'as tree' => array(
        'class' => 'Tree',
    ),
)

where as tree stands for attaching a behavior named tree, and the array will be passed to \Yii::createObject() to create the behavior object.