Events

CodeIgniter's Events feature provides a means to tap into and modify the inner workings of the framework without hacking core files. When CodeIgniter runs it follows a specific execution process. There may be instances, however, when you'd like to cause some action to take place at a particular stage in the execution process. For example, you might want to run a script right before your controllers get loaded, or right after, or you might want to trigger one of your own scripts in some other location.

Events work on a publish/subscribe pattern, where an event, is triggered at some point during the script execution. Other scripts can "subscribe" to that event by registering with the Events class to let it know they want to perform an action when that event is triggered.

Enabling Events

Events are always enabled, and are available globally.

Defining an Event

Most events are defined within the app/Config/Events.php file. You can subscribe an action to an event with the Events class' on() method. The first parameter is the name of the event to subscribe to. The second parameter is a callable that will be run when that event is triggered:

use CodeIgniter\Events\Events;

Events::on('pre_system', ['MyClass', 'MyFunction']);

In this example, whenever the pre_controller event is executed, an instance of MyClass is created and the MyFunction method is run. Note that the second parameter can be any form of callable that PHP recognizes:

// Call a standalone function
Events::on('pre_system', 'some_function');

// Call on an instance method
$user = new User();
Events::on('pre_system', [$user, 'some_method']);

// Call on a static method
Events::on('pre_system', 'SomeClass::someMethod');

// Use a Closure
Events::on('pre_system', function(...$params)
{
        . . .
});

Setting Priorities

Since multiple methods can be subscribed to a single event, you will need a way to define in what order those methods are called. You can do this by passing a priority value as the third parameter of the on() method. Lower values are executed first, with a value of 1 having the highest priority, and there being no limit on the lower values:

Events::on('post_controller_constructor', 'some_function', 25);

Any subscribers with the same priority will be executed in the order they were defined.

Three constants are defined for your use, that set some helpful ranges on the values. You are not required to use these but you might find they aid readability:

define('EVENT_PRIORITY_LOW', 200);
define('EVENT_PRIORITY_NORMAL', 100);
define('EVENT_PRIORITY_HIGH', 10);

Once sorted, all subscribers are executed in order. If any subscriber returns a boolean false value, then execution of the subscribers will stop.

Publishing your own Events

The Events library makes it simple for you to create events in your own code, also. To use this feature, you would simply need to call the trigger() method on the Events class with the name of the event:

\CodeIgniter\Events\Events::trigger('some_event');

You can pass any number of arguments to the subscribers by adding them as additional parameters. Subscribers will be given the arguments in the same order as defined:

\CodeIgniter\Events\Events::trigger('some_events', $foo, $bar, $baz);

Events::on('some_event', function($foo, $bar, $baz) {
        ...
});

Simulating Events

During testing, you might not want the events to actually fire, as sending out hundreds of emails a day is both slow and counter-productive. You can tell the Events class to only simulate running the events with the simulate() method. When true, all events will be skipped over during the trigger method. Everything else will work as normal, though.

Events::simulate(true);

You can stop simulation by passing false:

Events::simulate(false);

Event Points

The following is a list of available event points within the CodeIgniter core code:

• pre_system Called very early during system execution. Only the benchmark and events class have been loaded at this point. No routing or other processes have happened.
• post_controller_constructor Called immediately after your controller is instantiated, but prior to any method calls happening.
• post_system Called after the final rendered page is sent to the browser, at the end of system execution after the finalized data is sent to the browser.