Super-simple example of C# observer/observable with delegates

Question

I recently started digging into C# but I can't by my life figure out how delegates work when implementing the observer/observable pattern in the language.

Could someone give me a super-simple example of how it is done? I have googled this, but all of the examples I found were either too problem-specific or too "bloated".

Bedfellow

Answer 1

The observer pattern is usually implemented with events.

Here's an example:

using System;

class Observable
{
    public event EventHandler SomethingHappened;

    public void DoSomething() =>
        SomethingHappened?.Invoke(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}

class Observer
{
    public void HandleEvent(object sender, EventArgs args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Something happened to " + sender);
    }
}

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Observable observable = new Observable();
        Observer observer = new Observer();
        observable.SomethingHappened += observer.HandleEvent;

        observable.DoSomething();
    }
}

See the linked article for a lot more detail.

Note that the above example uses C# 6 null-conditional operator to implement DoSomething safely to handle cases where SomethingHappened has not been subscribed to, and is therefore null. If you're using an older version of C#, you'd need code like this:

public void DoSomething()
{
    var handler = SomethingHappened;
    if (handler != null)
    {
        handler(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    }
}

Reinwald

To save yourself a few lines and avoid the null check, initialize your event like this: #341110 – Explanatory

@Dinah: That doesn't avoid the null check. You can still set SomethingHappened = null later (a handy if lazy and non-ideal way of unsubscribing all handlers), so the null check is always necessary. – Dambro

@DanPuzey: You can within the class, but equally you can make sure you don't do that - and other code can't do it, as it can only subscribe and unsubscribe. If you ensure that you never set it to null deliberately within you class, it's fine to avoid the null check. – Reinwald

@JonSkeet: of course, I was forgetting you can't do that outside of the class. Apologies! – Dambro

observable.SomethingHappened += (object sender, EventArgs e) => Console.WriteLine("Something happened to " + sender); :) – Excite

Nice example. although I still don't really grasp why we need an extra observer class? Can't we just listen for the event straight from the Test class, and put our handler there? (like in javascript?) – Popularly

@Kokodoko: Yes, you absolutely can - or just use a lambda expression. The point was to show the separate concepts. They can be combined, but to understand them it's useful to show them in a separate way. – Reinwald

@DanPuzey To unsubscribe all hndlers, just re-initialize the event: SomeEvent = delegeate { }; – Bradford

where's the declaration of delegate EventHandler? – Ostmark

@JerryGoyal: In mscorlib, in the System namespace: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.eventhandler – Reinwald

@JonSkeet While the answer is technically correct and simple, it is important to highlight that Observable will prevent the Observer from garbage collected and may result in memory leaks and unexpected behaviour. – Begay

@Hemant: It will no more result in memory leaks and unexpected behaviour than any other reference from one object to another... – Reinwald

I think you can replace all stuff in DoSomething with SomethingHappened?.Invoke(this, EventArgs.Empty); – Subito

@JuniorM: Yes, you can now - but you couldn't when the answer was written in 2009 :) (I'm not going to go over all my old answers each time a new language release comes out...) – Reinwald

So....WinForm is an observer pattern in essentially? (lol) – Bigotry

Answer 2

In this model, you have publishers who will do some logic and publish an "event."
Publishers will then send out their event only to subscribers who have subscribed to receive the specific event.

In C#, any object can publish a set of events to which other applications can subscribe.
When the publishing class raises an event, all the subscribed applications are notified.
The following figure shows this mechanism.

Simplest Example possible on Events and Delegates in C#:

code is self explanatory, Also I've added the comments to clear out the code.

  using System;

public class Publisher //main publisher class which will invoke methods of all subscriber classes
{
    public delegate void TickHandler(Publisher m, EventArgs e); //declaring a delegate
    public TickHandler Tick;     //creating an object of delegate
    public EventArgs e = null;   //set 2nd paramter empty
    public void Start()     //starting point of thread
    {
        while (true)
        {
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(300);
            if (Tick != null)   //check if delegate object points to any listener classes method
            {
                Tick(this, e);  //if it points i.e. not null then invoke that method!
            }
        }
    }
}

public class Subscriber1                //1st subscriber class
{
    public void Subscribe(Publisher m)  //get the object of pubisher class
    {
        m.Tick += HeardIt;              //attach listener class method to publisher class delegate object
    }
    private void HeardIt(Publisher m, EventArgs e)   //subscriber class method
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Heard It by Listener");
    }

}
public class Subscriber2                   //2nd subscriber class
{
    public void Subscribe2(Publisher m)    //get the object of pubisher class
    {
        m.Tick += HeardIt;               //attach listener class method to publisher class delegate object
    }
    private void HeardIt(Publisher m, EventArgs e)   //subscriber class method
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Heard It by Listener2");
    }

}

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Publisher m = new Publisher();      //create an object of publisher class which will later be passed on subscriber classes
        Subscriber1 l = new Subscriber1();  //create object of 1st subscriber class
        Subscriber2 l2 = new Subscriber2(); //create object of 2nd subscriber class
        l.Subscribe(m);     //we pass object of publisher class to access delegate of publisher class
        l2.Subscribe2(m);   //we pass object of publisher class to access delegate of publisher class

        m.Start();          //starting point of publisher class
    }
}

Output:

Heard It by Listener

Heard It by Listener2

Heard It by Listener

Heard It by Listener2

Heard It by Listener . . . (infinite times)

Ostmark

Answer 3

Here's a simple example:

public class ObservableClass
{
    private Int32 _Value;

    public Int32 Value
    {
        get { return _Value; }
        set
        {
            if (_Value != value)
            {
                _Value = value;
                OnValueChanged();
            }
        }
    }

    public event EventHandler ValueChanged;

    protected void OnValueChanged()
    {
        if (ValueChanged != null)
            ValueChanged(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    }
}

public class ObserverClass
{
    public ObserverClass(ObservableClass observable)
    {
        observable.ValueChanged += TheValueChanged;
    }

    private void TheValueChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Console.Out.WriteLine("Value changed to " +
            ((ObservableClass)sender).Value);
    }
}

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        ObservableClass observable = new ObservableClass();
        ObserverClass observer = new ObserverClass(observable);
        observable.Value = 10;
    }
}

Note:

• This violates a rule in that I don't unhook the observer from the observable, this is perhaps good enough for this simple example, but make sure you don't keep observers hanging off of your events like that. A way to handle this would be to make ObserverClass IDisposable, and let the .Dispose method do the opposite of the code in the constructor
• No error-checking performed, at least a null-check should be done in the constructor of the ObserverClass

Typewrite

Answer 4

I've tied together a couple of the great examples above (thank you as always to Mr. Skeet and Mr. Karlsen) to include a couple of different Observables and utilized an interface to keep track of them in the Observer and allowed the Observer to to "observe" any number of Observables via an internal list:

namespace ObservablePattern
{
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;

    internal static class Program
    {
        private static void Main()
        {
            var observable = new Observable();
            var anotherObservable = new AnotherObservable();

            using (IObserver observer = new Observer(observable))
            {
                observable.DoSomething();
                observer.Add(anotherObservable);
                anotherObservable.DoSomething();
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    internal interface IObservable
    {
        event EventHandler SomethingHappened;
    }

    internal sealed class Observable : IObservable
    {
        public event EventHandler SomethingHappened;

        public void DoSomething()
        {
            var handler = this.SomethingHappened;

            Console.WriteLine("About to do something.");
            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(this, EventArgs.Empty);
            }
        }
    }

    internal sealed class AnotherObservable : IObservable
    {
        public event EventHandler SomethingHappened;

        public void DoSomething()
        {
            var handler = this.SomethingHappened;

            Console.WriteLine("About to do something different.");
            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(this, EventArgs.Empty);
            }
        }
    }

    internal interface IObserver : IDisposable
    {
        void Add(IObservable observable);

        void Remove(IObservable observable);
    }

    internal sealed class Observer : IObserver
    {
        private readonly Lazy<IList<IObservable>> observables =
            new Lazy<IList<IObservable>>(() => new List<IObservable>());

        public Observer()
        {
        }

        public Observer(IObservable observable) : this()
        {
            this.Add(observable);
        }

        public void Add(IObservable observable)
        {
            if (observable == null)
            {
                return;
            }

            lock (this.observables)
            {
                this.observables.Value.Add(observable);
                observable.SomethingHappened += HandleEvent;
            }
        }

        public void Remove(IObservable observable)
        {
            if (observable == null)
            {
                return;
            }

            lock (this.observables)
            {
                observable.SomethingHappened -= HandleEvent;
                this.observables.Value.Remove(observable);
            }
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            for (var i = this.observables.Value.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            {
                this.Remove(this.observables.Value[i]);
            }
        }

        private static void HandleEvent(object sender, EventArgs args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Something happened to " + sender);
        }
    }
}

Cascio

I know this is old, but... This looks thread safe, but it is not. In both Observer.Add and Observer.Remove the null check needs to be inside the lock. Dispose should also aquire the lock, and set an isDispised flag. Otherwise a good, complete example. – Eluviation

Answer 5

Applying the Observer Pattern with delegates and events in c# is named "Event Pattern" according to MSDN which is a slight variation.

In this Article you will find well structured examples of how to apply the pattern in c# both the classic way and using delegates and events.

Exploring the Observer Design Pattern

public class Stock
{

    //declare a delegate for the event
    public delegate void AskPriceChangedHandler(object sender,
          AskPriceChangedEventArgs e);
    //declare the event using the delegate
    public event AskPriceChangedHandler AskPriceChanged;

    //instance variable for ask price
    object _askPrice;

    //property for ask price
    public object AskPrice
    {

        set
        {
            //set the instance variable
            _askPrice = value;

            //fire the event
            OnAskPriceChanged();
        }

    }//AskPrice property

    //method to fire event delegate with proper name
    protected void OnAskPriceChanged()
    {

        AskPriceChanged(this, new AskPriceChangedEventArgs(_askPrice));

    }//AskPriceChanged

}//Stock class

//specialized event class for the askpricechanged event
public class AskPriceChangedEventArgs : EventArgs
{

    //instance variable to store the ask price
    private object _askPrice;

    //constructor that sets askprice
    public AskPriceChangedEventArgs(object askPrice) { _askPrice = askPrice; }

    //public property for the ask price
    public object AskPrice { get { return _askPrice; } }

}//AskPriceChangedEventArgs

Doubledecker

Answer 6

    /**********************Simple Example ***********************/    

class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                Parent p = new Parent();
            }
        }

        ////////////////////////////////////////////

        public delegate void DelegateName(string data);

        class Child
        {
            public event DelegateName delegateName;

            public void call()
            {
                delegateName("Narottam");
            }
        }

        ///////////////////////////////////////////

        class Parent
        {
            public Parent()
            {
                Child c = new Child();
                c.delegateName += new DelegateName(print);
                //or like this
                //c.delegateName += print;
                c.call();
            }

            public void print(string name)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("yes we got the name : " + name);
            }
        }

Commutative

Answer 7

I did't want to change my source code to add additional observer , so I have written following simple example:

//EVENT DRIVEN OBSERVER PATTERN
public class Publisher
{
    public Publisher()
    {
        var observable = new Observable();
        observable.PublishData("Hello World!");
    }
}

//Server will send data to this class's PublishData method
public class Observable
{
    public event Receive OnReceive;

    public void PublishData(string data)
    {
        //Add all the observer below
        //1st observer
        IObserver iObserver = new Observer1();
        this.OnReceive += iObserver.ReceiveData;
        //2nd observer
        IObserver iObserver2 = new Observer2();
        this.OnReceive += iObserver2.ReceiveData;

        //publish data 
        var handler = OnReceive;
        if (handler != null)
        {
            handler(data);
        }
    }
}

public interface IObserver
{
    void ReceiveData(string data);
}

//Observer example
public class Observer1 : IObserver
{
    public void ReceiveData(string data)
    {
        //sample observers does nothing with data :)
    }
}

public class Observer2 : IObserver
{
    public void ReceiveData(string data)
    {
        //sample observers does nothing with data :)
    }
}

Baronetage

Answer 8

Something like this:

// interface implementation publisher
public delegate void eiSubjectEventHandler(eiSubject subject);

public interface eiSubject
{
    event eiSubjectEventHandler OnUpdate;

    void GenereteEventUpdate();

}

// class implementation publisher
class ecSubject : eiSubject
{
    private event eiSubjectEventHandler _OnUpdate = null;
    public event eiSubjectEventHandler OnUpdate
    {
        add
        {
            lock (this)
            {
                _OnUpdate -= value;
                _OnUpdate += value;
            }
        }
        remove { lock (this) { _OnUpdate -= value; } }
    }

    public void GenereteEventUpdate()
    {
        eiSubjectEventHandler handler = _OnUpdate;

        if (handler != null)
        {
            handler(this);
        }
    }

}

// interface implementation subscriber
public interface eiObserver
{
    void DoOnUpdate(eiSubject subject);

}

// class implementation subscriber
class ecObserver : eiObserver
{
    public virtual void DoOnUpdate(eiSubject subject)
    {
    }
}

. observer pattern C# with event . link to the repository

Tegan