Listen for multiple events on a $scope

Question

I have a directive that binds some functions to the local scope with $scope.$on.

Is it possible to bind the same function to multiple events in one call?

Ideally I'd be able to do something like this:

app.directive('multipleSadness', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'C',
        link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {
            scope.$on('event:auth-loginRequired event:auth-loginSuccessful', function() {
                console.log('The Ferrari is to a Mini what AngularJS is to ... other JavaScript frameworks');
            });
        }
    };
});

But this doesn't work. The same example with the comma-separated event name string replaced with ['event:auth-loginRequired', 'event:auth-loginConfirmed'] doesn't wrk either.

What does work is this:

app.directive('multipleSadness', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'C',
        link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {

            scope.$on('event:auth-loginRequired', function() {
                console.log('The Ferrari is to a Mini what AngularJS is to ... other JavaScript frameworks');
            });
            scope.$on('event:auth-loginConfirmed', function() {
                console.log('The Ferrari is to a Mini what AngularJS is to ... other JavaScript frameworks');
            });
        }
    };
});

But this is not ideal.

Is it possible to bind multiple events to the same function in one go?

Answer 1

The other answers (Anders Ekdahl) are 100% correct... pick one of those... BUT...

Barring that, you could always roll your own:

// a hack to extend the $rootScope 
app.run(function($rootScope) {
   $rootScope.$onMany = function(events, fn) {
      for(var i = 0; i < events.length; i++) {
         this.$on(events[i], fn);
      }
   }
});

app.directive('multipleSadness', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'C',
        link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {
            scope.$onMany(['event:auth-loginRequired', 'event:auth-loginSuccessful'], function() {
                console.log('The Ferrari is to a Mini what AngularJS is to ... other JavaScript frameworks');
            });
        }
    };
});

I suppose if you really wanted to do the .split(',') you could, but that's an implementation detail.

Answer 2

AngularJS does not support multiple event binding but you can do something like this:

var handler = function () { ... }
angular.forEach("event:auth-loginRequired event:auth-loginConfirmed".split(" "), function (event) {
    scope.$on(event, handler);
});

Answer 3

Yes. Like this:

app.directive('multipleSadness', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'C',
        link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {

            function sameFunction(eventId) {
                console.log('Event: ' + eventId + '. The Ferrari is to a Mini what AngularJS is to ... other JavaScript frameworks.');
            }

            scope.$on('event:auth-loginRequired', function() {sameFunction('auth-loginRequired');});
            scope.$on('event:auth-loginConfirmed', function () {sameFunction('auth-loginConfirmed');});
        }
    };
});

But just because you can, doesn't mean you should :). If the events are continue to propagate up to another listener and they are handled differently there, then maybe there is a case to do this. If this is going to be the only listener than you should just emit (or broadcast) the same event.

Answer 4

I don't think that's possible, since the event might send data to the callback, and if you listen to multiple events you wouldn't know which data came from which event.

I would have done something like this:

function listener() {
    console.log('event fired');
}
scope.$on('event:auth-loginRequired', listener);
scope.$on('event:auth-loginConfirmed', listener);