Angular 2: How do I emit an event up through multiple nested components?

Question

I have one "smart" component called ItemsComponent and two nested "dumb" components, ItemsListComponent and ItemComponent.

ItemsComponent's html template contains ItemsListComponent.

// ItemsComponent
<div>
  // ItemsListComponent
  <app-items-list
    [items]="items"
    (doDelete)="deleteItem($event)"
  >
  </app-items-list>
<div>

and it has a function called deleteItem:

deletItem(item) {
  // code to handle item deletion...
}

ItemsListComponent contains ItemComponent:

// ItemsListComponent    
<ul *ngFor="let item of items">
  // ItemComponent
  <app-item
   [item]="item"
   (doDelete)="deleteItem($event)"
  >
  </app-item>
</ul>

So the html structure is like this:

ItemsComponent (app-items)
    - ItemsListComponent (app-items-list)
        - ItemComponent (app-item)

ItemComponent has a button

<button (click)="deleteItem(item)">

and an event emitter for deleteItem:

@Output() doDelete = new EventEmitter();

deleteItem(item) {
  this.doDelete.emit(item);
}

When the delete button is clicked in ItemComponent, the event only bubbles up to it's immediate parent, ItemsListComponent, but doesn't make it to ItemsComponent unless I add identical event emitter functionality to the ItemsListComponent.

Smelly ItemsListComponent:

@Output() doDelete = new EventEmitter();

deleteItem(item) {
  this.doDelete.emit(item);
}

It works this way, but ItemsListComponent now shares code smell with ItemsComponent since they both have the same event emitter stuff and the event has to be passed from one component to another on it's way up.

Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

As you've realised, custom angular events don't bubble, so if you have a deeply nested component and you want to pass an event to a higher component, every component in between has to delegate the event upwards.

Another option is to move your deleteItem functionality to a service that is injected into one of your lower level components. That way, the function can be called at the point where it happens, rather than having to bubble the event up your view hierarchy.