How to removeEventListener that is addEventListener with anonymous function?

Japboy picture Japboy · Apr 14, 2011 · Viewed 90.5k times · Source
function doSomethingWith(param)
{
    document.body.addEventListener(
        'scroll',
        function()
        {
            document.write(param);
        },
        false
    ); // An event that I want to remove later
}
setTimeout(
    function()
    {
        document.body.removeEventListener('scroll', HANDLER ,false);
            // What HANDLER should I specify to remove the anonymous handler above?
    },
    3000
);
doSomethingWith('Test. ');

Answer

Felix Kling picture Felix Kling · Apr 14, 2011

You can't. You have to use a named function or store the reference somehow.

var handler;

function doSomethingWith(param) {
    handler = function(){
        document.write(param);
    };  
    document.body.addEventListener('scroll', handler,false);
}
setTimeout(function() {
     document.body.removeEventListener('scroll', handler ,false);
}, 3000);

The best would be to do this in a structured way, so that you can identify different handlers and remove them. In the example above, you obviously could only remove the last handler.

Update:

You could create your own handler handler (:)) :

var Handler = (function(){
    var i = 1,
        listeners = {};

    return {
        addListener: function(element, event, handler, capture) {
            element.addEventListener(event, handler, capture);
            listeners[i] = {element: element, 
                             event: event, 
                             handler: handler, 
                             capture: capture};
            return i++;
        },
        removeListener: function(id) {
            if(id in listeners) {
                var h = listeners[id];
                h.element.removeEventListener(h.event, h.handler, h.capture);
                delete listeners[id];
            }
        }
    };
}());

Then you can use it with:

function doSomethingWith(param) {
    return Handler.addListener(document.body, 'scroll', function() {
        document.write(param);
    }, false);
}

var handler = doSomethingWith('Test. ');

setTimeout(function() {
     Handler.removeListener(handler);
}, 3000);

DEMO