Can plain Javascript objects have events?

Question

Can plain Javascript objects have event attached to them? Say something like this:

obj = new Object();
obj.addEventListener('doSomething', foo, true);

I know i can do this with jQuery, but is it possible without any library?

Answer 1

You'll have to implement your own functionality for that, but that's not very hard.

var obj = {
    events: {},
    addEventListener: function(eventName, handler) {
        if(!(eventName in this.events))
            this.events[eventName] = [];

        this.events[eventName].push(handler);
    },

    raiseEvent: function(eventName, args) {
        var currentEvents = this.events[eventName];
        if(!currentEvents) return;

        for(var i = 0; i < currentEvents.length; i++) {
           if(typeof currentEvents[i] == 'function') {
              currentEvents[i](args);
           }
        }
    },

    click: function() {
        // custom 'click' function. when this is called, you do whatever you
        // want 'click' to do. and then raise the event:

        this.raiseEvent('onClick');
    }
};