Difference between event handlers and callbacks

Question

What is the difference between an event handler and a callback function?

Norrie

This question is very old but I found this link from MSDN very interesting. I hope anyone else that stumbles on this question gets something out of this link. – Sulphate

see also #2020881 – Dissatisfy

Answer 1

Generally speaking, a 'callback' is under the control of the detecting process. So you tell a GUI manager "call myaction when this button is pressed" and the GUI manager calls the action when the button is pressed.

Event Handlers on the other hand operate at one step removed. The GUI manager is configured to send messages to an event handler. You tell an event manager that button pushes are handled by the myaction program. When the button is pushed the GUI manager puts a message on the event handler's queue and gets on with GUI managing. The event handler picks up the message from the queue, sees it's a button push, fires up the myaction program, and moves on to handling the next event. Usually the myaction program will run as an independent thread or even a separate process.

While the "event handler" pattern is more complex it is much more robust and less likely to hang when an action fails. It also makes for a more responsive GUI.

Annisannissa

Answer 2

A callback is procedure you pass as an argument to another procedure. The procedure receiving the parameter can call it, or share it so some other procedures in the system can call it.

An event handler is a procedure called when an event happens. It can be a callback.

Edrei

Answer 3

An event handler is a type of callback. It's called whenever an event occurs. The term is usually used in terms of user interfaces where events are things like moving the mouse, clicking something and so on.

Partake

So there are other scenarios when a callback could be called? Apart from events? Can you please give example of one such situation? – Norrie

@cletus, i liked you answer, but could you add some examples of what is an event handler and what is callback. I understand what you said.. but a callback always occurs because "something happens", that something happens occurs 99,999999% (to my humble acknowledge) to be an event, i would not use other word, and hence, other meaning... and there before conclude that technically speaking are the SAME thing. Please help me to improve my acknowledge. Thanks!! Greetings! :). Try think this way... Could you enumerate other types of callbacks that doesn't belong to a specific event? – Kerekes

Answer 4

Events - Think of a Server (Employee) and Client (Boss).One Employee can have many Bosses. The Employee Raises the event, when he finishes the task, and the Bosses may decide to listen to the Employee event or not.The employee is the publisher and the bosses are subscriber.

Callback - The Boss specifically asked the employee to do a task and at the end of task done, the Boss wants to be notified. The employee will make sure that when the task is done, he notifies only the Boss that requested, not necessary all the Bosses. The employee will not notify the Boss, if the partial job is done. It will be only after all the task is done.Only one boss requested the info, and employee only posted the reply to one boss.

Tokoloshe

Answer 5

Callback (from Wikipedia): "executable code that is passed as an argument to other code".
Event handler (again from Wikipedia): "asynchronous callback subroutine that handles inputs received in a program".

Which happens to be the way I've always understood it: an event handler is a very specific type of callback.

Merwyn

Answer 6

Another aspect of this is that events describe something that happened in the past, whereas a callback is often used while something is happening.

When an event fires, you're being told that something has happened. When a callback is used, you're being asked to participate in something.

A library or framework might issue events that let you know something has happened. A framework offers you points at which you can plug in code (perhaps as callbacks) so that you can take actively part in a process.

Part of the problem is that event, callback refer to technical mcehanisms as well as more abstract processes.

Pentamerous

Answer 7

An event handler is a callback too. Its just more decoupled.

Traditionally a process "A" would pass the pointer to one of it's method(callback) to an external process "B" so that B can invoke it later based on the logic implemented.

For e.g. Let's say our goal is to check if an API call succeeded.

If it did, we store a value "success" in a variable and if it did not, then we store "failed" in it. This variable is updated by a function "checkIfAPICallSucceded" in our program "P", which accepts the API response as an argument to decide the fate of this variable.

Here is how a normal callback scenario would implement it:

• Step 1: P makes an API call
  • Note 1.1: The API call itself is handled by a separate process "Q" (say a network program)
  • Note 1.2: Let's imagine P waits (blocks or sleeps) until Q has the result
  • Note 1.3: So Q needs to let P know when the response arrives
  • Note 1.4: Therefore P needs to hand over the pointer to the function "checkIfAPICallSucceded"(callback) to Q while making the API call
• Step 2: P passes the pointer to "checkIfAPICallSucceded" along with the call
• Step 3: Q receives the request for the API call along with callback's pointer
• Step 4: Q receives the response from the API call and passes it along with the pointer to P
• Step 5: P calls the callback with the response as the argument.

Problem here is that Q knows "too" much about P (memory address of the callback within P). This may not be ideal.

Within event handlers, the difference is the callback itself is never passed to Q. Instead, upon receiving the response Q simply announces an event (an object containing the status and the data of the response). Yet another program called an event loop "EL" (this is a simple program that listens for events) manages the execution of the callback.

• Step 1: P makes an API call to Q
  • Note 1.1: As notified above, Event handler models have yet another program or process called "EL"
  • Note 1.2: P passes the event handler (callback) to EL instead of Q
  • Note 1.3: EL does 2 things - it maintains a table with pointers to registered callbacks and it also continuously checks a memory structure called event queue for event objects
  • Note 1.4: After making the API call to Q and registering the event handler with EL, P doesn't wait and carries on executing the next statements
• Step 2: Upon receiving the response, Q pushes the event "e" to the event queue
• Step 3: EL then picks up "e" during its next loop
• Step 4: EL then calls the corresponding callback from the table with e as the argument

This way Q never knows anything about P. In fact Q may not even directly push e to the event queue and the OS may do it on its behalf and in such a case Q would not even know about EL.

Having an event loop to handle callback results in following benefits:

• the callbacks can be fired once P is free from its current execution tasks (this can avoid spinning up separate threads and the resulting thread management headaches)
• the event queue can keep storing events avoiding blocking Q who would otherwise need to block until the first event is serviced by P.

Event handler model therefore requires an additional program (EL) and therefore additional resource(CPU time and memory). It is best suited for I/O operations where it is almost sure that those programs are developed by an entirely different team (therefore low trust levels)

Simple callbacks where Q "knows" about P may sound unpleasant but when its the same team(high trust levels) that creates both Q and P, simple callbacks can save resources.

Jem

I don't think the definition of callback implies asynchronicity, you can have synchronous callbacks too. – Vindicable

@Vindicable completely agree. Callbacks can be synchronous. This was a very old answer and I have just updated it again for more clarity. – Jem

Answer 8

A callback is function(method) you pass as an argument to another function(method). The function(method) receiving the parameter can call it, or share it so some other function(method) in the system can call it.

An event handler is a function(method) called when an event happens. It can be a callback.

Alehouse

Answer 9

The underlying mechanisms are similar, but the semantics are different. Both callbacks and event handlers are called asynchronously.

The callback function is generally passed explicitly from a caller routine to request some information. The information is returned some time later, passed as arguments back to the callback by the callee. At this time, the calling routine completes its business. Often the callback is a closure - syntactically inside the calling routine, and often un-named (anonymous). It might look a bit like the below, in javascript:

function caller() {
    someLibrary.getMeSomething(arg1, arg2, function(returnedData) {
        // this is the callback which will do something with returnedData
    });
}

So the callee (someLibrary.getMeSomething) is given an anonymous callback function, and some time later this function is called with the returnedData. A callback is like a single-shot event to a single receiver.

Events handlers are also 'called back', but generally they are used over an extended period for multiple events, like mouse clicks, network events etc. Also, multiple objects may be interested in the same event. For these reasons, you generally 'subscribe' or 'register' to events in setup code (like object initialisation), and the event handler is more typically a named method. Usually too, each event type is identified as a constant or string.

So in Python it might look like:

class MyUIClass:

    def __init__(self):
        someUILib.register(someUILib.events.MOUSE_CLICK, self.my_mouse_click_handler);

    def my_mouse_click_handler(self, eventInfo):
        # do something with event
        if eventInfo.x < 100:
             print 'You clicked in the margin'

Slipknot

A callback need not be called asynchronously. In it's simplest form, a callback is just a function/procedure reference that is passed as an argument to other code. The other code is free to call the callback function synchronously. On a separate note, lambda expressions have also become pervasive in defining event handler code, so whether code is defined in a named or anonymous method is not so relevant to defining whether something is a "callback" or an "event handler". The key difference is the pattern of how the code is called back, not how the code is defined. – Dowd

Answer 10

Event callbacks and handlers, at the highest abstract level, are the same i.e. you have an event and a response to that event. (A response is just a piece of code that needs to run in response to something that happened.) The difference between the two lies in the fact that if this code is directly or indirectly invoked. In the case of callbacks, the code i.e. the callback itself is directly invoked. In the case of event handlers, this event is first communicated or notified to the right recipient and then from then on, the code is then invoked.

Paresthesia

Answer 11

In interactive computer graphics, these terminologies are used in a bit different way than other fields. For example, if we are using a Graphics API like (let's say OpenGL), then Events are different actions on the window. The actions include window resizing, mouse motion, keyboard interaction etc. It is not necessary the events always need to be involved with physical, it can also be logical events such as programmers can rotate and move positions.

Callbacks (a.k.a. event handlers) are the functions to handle even mode input. For instance, in GLUT (OpenGL library)

glutMouseFunc(myMouse) -> here myMouse is a logical event, and that is being handles by glutMouseFunc() is the callback.

Fourgon

Answer 12

One extra thing to note (and perhaps the most important) is that, events can be handled by many consumers/receivers of the event.

While the callback implies a single receiver of the notification (well, unless you are in the JavaScript world were monkey-patching functions is a norm...).

So, callbacks are for more "private" communication between two parties, while events are for more "public announcements" and multiple subscribers.

Plus, as mentioned in another answer (see answer from supi), there is better decoupling in events. And more flexibility (e.g., you can usually remove event handlers whenever you want, while with callbacks sometimes it is not possible).

Leviathan

Answer 13

Callback is for asking another function to do business operations and send a result whereas events are not but asking for handover the control so that we can only handle business operation.

Eg: Button click is event (We are doing business operation on click of button). Looping collections in callback since forEach method is doing business operation and providing result.

Olag

Answer 14

An event has special features like bubbling and so on. If you do not need those features, then just use a callback.

Selfpossession

Answer 15

Event handler is a callback routine that operates asynchronously once an event takes place. It dictates the action that follows the event. The programmer writes a code for this action to take place. An event is an action that takes place when a user interacts with a program.

Heath

Answer 16

Event handler is a callback from the system.

Sublime

it's oversimplified. But. Where you can call callback function on your own without any event or this stuff you can't do this with event handler. – Quarrelsome