Class Connection

For EventEmitters this behaves exactly the same as calling .listeners on the emitter.

For EventTargets this is the only way to get the event listeners for the event target. This is useful for debugging and diagnostic purposes.

const { getEventListeners, EventEmitter } = require('events');

{
  const ee = new EventEmitter();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  ee.on('foo', listener);
  getEventListeners(ee, 'foo'); // [listener]
}
{
  const et = new EventTarget();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  et.addEventListener('foo', listener);
  getEventListeners(et, 'foo'); // [listener]
}

const { EventEmitter, listenerCount } = require('events');
const myEmitter = new EventEmitter();
myEmitter.on('event', () => {});
myEmitter.on('event', () => {});
console.log(listenerCount(myEmitter, 'event'));
// Prints: 2

(async () => { const ee = new EventEmitter();

// Emit later on process.nextTick(() => { ee.emit('foo', 'bar'); ee.emit('foo', 42); });

for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo')) { // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use // if concurrent execution is required. console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42] } // Unreachable here })();

Returns an `AsyncIterator` that iterates `eventName` events. It will throw
if the `EventEmitter` emits `'error'`. It removes all listeners when
exiting the loop. The `value` returned by each iteration is an array
composed of the emitted event arguments.

An `AbortSignal` can be used to cancel waiting on events:

```js
const { on, EventEmitter } = require('events');
const ac = new AbortController();

(async () => {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  // Emit later on
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
    ee.emit('foo', 42);
  });

  for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { signal: ac.signal })) {
    // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
    // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
    // if concurrent execution is required.
    console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
  }
  // Unreachable here
})();

process.nextTick(() => ac.abort());

This method is intentionally generic and works with the web platform EventTarget interface, which has no special'error' event semantics and does not listen to the 'error' event.

const { once, EventEmitter } = require('events');

async function run() {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('myevent', 42);
  });

  const [value] = await once(ee, 'myevent');
  console.log(value);

  const err = new Error('kaboom');
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('error', err);
  });

  try {
    await once(ee, 'myevent');
  } catch (err) {
    console.log('error happened', err);
  }
}

run();

The special handling of the 'error' event is only used when events.once()is used to wait for another event. If events.once() is used to wait for the 'error' event itself, then it is treated as any other kind of event without special handling:

const { EventEmitter, once } = require('events');

const ee = new EventEmitter();

once(ee, 'error')
  .then(([err]) => console.log('ok', err.message))
  .catch((err) => console.log('error', err.message));

ee.emit('error', new Error('boom'));

// Prints: ok boom

An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting for the event:

const { EventEmitter, once } = require('events');

const ee = new EventEmitter();
const ac = new AbortController();

async function foo(emitter, event, signal) {
  try {
    await once(emitter, event, { signal });
    console.log('event emitted!');
  } catch (error) {
    if (error.name === 'AbortError') {
      console.error('Waiting for the event was canceled!');
    } else {
      console.error('There was an error', error.message);
    }
  }
}

foo(ee, 'foo', ac.signal);
ac.abort(); // Abort waiting for the event
ee.emit('foo'); // Prints: Waiting for the event was canceled!

EventEmitter.setMaxListeners(20);
// Equivalent to
EventEmitter.defaultMaxListeners = 20;

const eventTarget = new EventTarget();
// Only way to increase limit for `EventTarget` instances
// as these doesn't expose its own `setMaxListeners` method
EventEmitter.setMaxListeners(20, eventTarget);