initphp/events

Events (Hook) library — bundles the EventEmitter primitive previously distributed as initphp/event-emitter.

2.1.0 2026-05-25 07:09 UTC

Requires

• php: >=5.6

Requires (Dev)

• friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer: ^3.0
• phpstan/phpstan: ^1.12
• phpunit/phpunit: ^9.6

Replaces

• initphp/event-emitter: *

MIT

• Muhammet ŞAFAK

• event-dispatcher
• events
• observer
• event-emitter
• hooks
• pubsub
• initphp

README

A small, dependency-free event / hook library for PHP. Ships both a high-level dispatcher with WordPress-style do_action-like semantics (stop the chain when a listener returns false, simulate mode, debug log) and a plain low-level EventEmitter you can instantiate and pass around like any other object.

Heads-up — v2.0 fixes a long-standing priority-ordering bug. In 1.x, listeners ran in the order they were registered, not in the order their priorities asked for. v2.0 makes priority honour its name. If your 1.x code happened to register listeners in ascending priority order, the visible behaviour does not change; if it didn't, please re-read Priorities and ordering and the v2.0 changelog.

At a glance

• Events — a static facade backed by a lazily-built singleton. Convenient for application-wide hooks where threading a dispatcher through every layer is overkill.
• Event — the high-level dispatcher itself. Adds priority-ordered dispatch with a "return false stops the chain" contract, plus optional simulate and debug modes. Use this directly when you want a dispatcher you own.
• EventEmitter — the low-level primitive. Plain on / once / emit / removeListener. No simulate, no debug, no short-circuit. Use this when you need a dispatcher with the smallest possible surface — or when you are migrating from the deprecated initphp/event-emitter package (the legacy \InitPHP\EventEmitter\* class names still work via a BC alias).

Everything is in a single PSR-4 namespace (InitPHP\Events\) and has zero runtime dependencies.

Requirements

Requirement	Version
PHP	>= 5.6 (runtime); PHP >= 7.3 to run the test suite (PHPUnit 9.6)
Extensions	none
Composer dependencies	none

Installation

composer require initphp/events

If you are coming from initphp/event-emitter, replace your dependency — initphp/events declares a Composer replace for it and ships a class alias so the old fully-qualified names still resolve. See Migration for details.

Quick start

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use InitPHP\Events\Events;

Events::on('helloTrigger', function (): void {
    echo 'Hello World' . PHP_EOL;
}, 100);

Events::on('helloTrigger', function (): void {
    echo 'Hi, World' . PHP_EOL;
}, 99);

Events::trigger('helloTrigger');

Output:

Hi, World
Hello World

The listener registered with priority 99 runs before the one with priority 100 — lower numeric value means runs first. The three named constants Events::PRIORITY_HIGH (10), Events::PRIORITY_NORMAL (100), and Events::PRIORITY_LOW (200) exist for readability.

Passing arguments to listeners

Events::on('greet', function (string $name, string $me): void {
    echo "Hi {$name}. I am {$me}." . PHP_EOL;
}, 99);

Events::trigger('greet', 'World', 'John');
// Hi World. I am John.

Stopping the chain

A listener that returns boolean false halts the chain — subsequent listeners are not invoked and trigger() itself returns false. This is the same convention as WordPress's apply_filters short-circuit:

Events::on('save', function ($payload) {
    if (!isValid($payload)) {
        return false;          // stops the chain
    }
}, 10);

Events::on('save', function ($payload): void {
    persist($payload);         // never runs if validation returned false
}, 20);

if (!Events::trigger('save', $payload)) {
    // at least one listener vetoed the operation
}

Working with Event directly

If you prefer a dispatcher you instantiate and pass around (easier to test, easier to scope, no global state), use Event:

use InitPHP\Events\Event;

$dispatcher = new Event();

$dispatcher
    ->on('user.registered', function ($user): void {
        sendWelcomeEmail($user);
    })
    ->on('user.registered', function ($user): void {
        trackSignup($user);
    }, Event::PRIORITY_LOW);    // run last

$dispatcher->trigger('user.registered', $user);

Event and Events expose the same surface — Events::on(...) simply forwards to a shared Event instance.

Working with the low-level EventEmitter

For libraries that want the smallest possible surface, the underlying emitter is also public:

use InitPHP\Events\EventEmitter;

$emitter = new EventEmitter();

$emitter->on('hello', function (string $name): void {
    echo "Hello {$name}!" . PHP_EOL;
}, 99);

$emitter->once('hello', function (string $name): void {
    echo "Hi {$name}, this only fires once." . PHP_EOL;
}, 10);

$emitter->emit('hello', ['World']);
$emitter->emit('hello', ['World']);

Differences from Event:

• emit() returns void (no short-circuit on false).
• Listener arguments come in as a single array, not as varargs.
• No simulate or debug mode.
• No singleton.

EventEmitter is what Event is built on. The same instance is reachable via $dispatcher->getEmitter() if you ever need both high-level dispatch and low-level emit on the same listener registry.

Priorities and ordering

PRIORITY_HIGH   = 10    ← runs first
PRIORITY_NORMAL = 100
PRIORITY_LOW    = 200   ← runs last

Rules:

1. Lower numeric priority runs first. The names are about importance (high-priority work runs early); the numbers are about position.
2. Within the same priority, listeners run in registration order (FIFO).
3. Priority is global per-event — once-listeners and regular listeners are merged into a single priority-sorted queue when an event fires.
4. Event names are matched case-insensitively: on('User.Created') and emit('user.created') see the same listener.

See docs/04-priorities-and-ordering.md for the full ordering contract, including how once() interacts with the priority queue.

One-shot listeners, removal, and cleanup

$dispatcher->once('boot', $listener);          // fires at most once
$dispatcher->off('boot', $listener);           // removes a specific listener
$dispatcher->removeAllListeners('boot');       // wipes one event
$dispatcher->removeAllListeners();             // wipes every event

The once() contract is honoured even when the chain is stopped by a false return — a one-shot listener that runs (or that would have run, but for a short-circuit earlier in the queue) is dropped after the trigger completes. See docs/05-once-and-removal.md.

Simulate mode and debug log

Event (and therefore Events) carry two opt-in instrumentation modes:

$dispatcher = new InitPHP\Events\Event();
$dispatcher->setSimulate(true);   // listeners are not invoked; trigger() still returns true
$dispatcher->setDebugMode(true);  // each trigger() appends {start, end, event} to the log

$dispatcher->trigger('checkout.complete', $order);

$dispatcher->getDebug();          // [['start' => ..., 'end' => ..., 'event' => 'checkout.complete']]
$dispatcher->clearDebug();        // empty the log

See docs/06-debug-and-simulate.md.

Public API

Class	Purpose
InitPHP\Events\Events	Static facade; thin shim over a shared Event instance.
InitPHP\Events\Event	High-level dispatcher (priority, short-circuit, simulate, debug).
InitPHP\Events\EventEmitter	Low-level primitive (on / once / emit / removeListener / clearOnceListeners).
InitPHP\Events\EventEmitterInterface	Contract that EventEmitter implements.

Method	Class	Purpose
trigger(string $name, ...$arguments): bool	Event · Events	Dispatch with priority + short-circuit semantics.
on(string, callable, int $priority = PRIORITY_NORMAL): self	Event · Events · EventEmitter	Register a listener.
once(string, callable, int $priority = PRIORITY_NORMAL): self	Event · Events · EventEmitter	Register a one-shot listener.
off(string, callable): self	Event · Events	Remove a specific listener (alias for removeListener).
removeListener(string, callable): void	EventEmitter	Remove a specific listener.
removeAllListeners(?string = null): self/void	Event · Events · EventEmitter	Wipe one event, or every event.
emit(string, array $args = []): void	EventEmitter	Low-level dispatch (no short-circuit).
clearOnceListeners(?string = null): void	EventEmitter	Drop one-shot listeners without invoking them.
listeners(?string = null): array	EventEmitter	Inspect the current listener registry.
setSimulate(bool): self / getSimulate(): bool	Event · Events	Toggle / inspect simulate mode.
setDebugMode(bool): self / getDebugMode(): bool	Event · Events	Toggle / inspect debug mode.
getDebug(): array / clearDebug(): self	Event · Events	Read / clear the debug log.
getEmitter(): EventEmitter	Event · Events	Access the backing emitter.
getInstance(): Event	Events	Return the shared dispatcher.
setInstance(Event): void	Events	Inject a pre-configured dispatcher.
reset(): void	Events	Drop the shared instance (tests, lifecycle resets).

Full signatures and exception behaviour: docs/09-api-reference.md.

Migrating from initphp/event-emitter

The standalone initphp/event-emitter package has been merged into this one and is now deprecated. If your code currently uses \InitPHP\EventEmitter\EventEmitter, no source changes are required — this package ships a backwards-compatibility alias:

- "initphp/event-emitter": "^1.0",
+ "initphp/events": "^2.0"

Composer will not install both packages side-by-side because initphp/events:^2.0 declares a replace for initphp/event-emitter.

When you next touch the code, prefer the new canonical namespace:

// Before
use InitPHP\EventEmitter\EventEmitter;

// After
use InitPHP\Events\EventEmitter;

The alias is intended as a transition aid and may be removed in a future major release. One important behaviour change that comes with v2.0: in 1.x, EventEmitter::emit() had a bug where the entire listeners array was passed to call_user_func_array instead of each individual listener, so emitted events silently fired no listeners at all. That is fixed in 2.0 — if you had quietly broken emit() calls in 1.x, they will now actually run their listeners.

See docs/07-migration-from-event-emitter.md for the full migration checklist.

Documentation

The full guide lives under docs/:

1. Getting started
2. The Events facade
3. Using EventEmitter directly
4. Priorities and ordering
5. Once-listeners, removal, and cleanup
6. Debug and simulate modes
7. Migrating from initphp/event-emitter
8. Recipes (plugin systems, request lifecycle, WordPress-style hooks)
9. API reference

Development

composer install
composer test         # PHPUnit

CI runs the test suite across PHP 7.3 – 8.4 and also lints the source on PHP 5.6 / 7.0 / 7.1 / 7.2 so the php >= 5.6 library contract stays honest.

Contributing & Security

• Contributing guidelines
• Code of Conduct
• Security policy

Credits

• Muhammet ŞAFAK <[e-mail]>

License

Released under the MIT License.