BatSoft.Observer.Manual

This unit implements the observer pattern.

Note: This is the manual version. Personally I prefer the managed version.

TManualEventHandler enables multiple objects to subscribe to the same event.

With TManualEventHandler the lifetime of a subscription must happen in the following order:

  • Observer calls Subscribe()
  • [The event handler is called… however many times.]
  • Observer calls Unsubscribe()
  • Observer and event handler can now be freed at will, as they’re no longer connected.

Use TNotifyEvents or implement one of the generics or use them as examples for writing your own explicit event handlers.

To add an event handler to a subject (the object that observers are observing) do the following… (In this example a TNotifyEvents, which does not take parameters.)

In the subject add:

TMySubject = class
private
  fOnChanged: TNotifyEvents;
public
  property OnChanged: TNotifyEvents read fOnChanged;

In the constructor add…

fOnChanged := TNotifyEvents.Create(Self);

…and don’t forget to free it in the destructor.

An observer has the following:

MySubj: TMySubject;
procedure CallbackMethod(Sender: TObject);

To subscribe:

MySubj.Subscribe(CallbackMethod);

To unsubscribe:

MySubj.Unsubscribe(CallbackMethod);

To fire the event, the TMySubject object calls:

fOnChanged.Call();