How can I make my own event in C#?

How can I make my own event in C#?


Here's an example of creating and using an event with C#

using System;

namespace Event_Example
{
    //First we have to define a delegate that acts as a signature for the
    //function that is ultimately called when the event is triggered.
    //You will notice that the second parameter is of MyEventArgs type.
    //This object will contain information about the triggered event.
    public delegate void MyEventHandler(object source, MyEventArgs e);

    //This is a class which describes the event to the class that recieves it.
    //An EventArgs class must always derive from System.EventArgs.
    public class MyEventArgs : EventArgs
    {
        private string EventInfo;
        public MyEventArgs(string Text)
        {
            EventInfo = Text;
        }
        public string GetInfo()
        {
            return EventInfo;
        }
    }

    //This next class is the one which contains an event and triggers it
    //once an action is performed. For example, lets trigger this event
    //once a variable is incremented over a particular value. Notice the
    //event uses the MyEventHandler delegate to create a signature
    //for the called function.
    public class MyClass
    {
        public event MyEventHandler OnMaximum;
        private int i;
        private int Maximum = 10;
        public int MyValue
        {
            get
            {
                return i;
            }
            set
            {
                if(value <= Maximum)
                {
                    i = value;
                }
                else
                {
                    //To make sure we only trigger the event if a handler is present
                    //we check the event to make sure it's not null.
                    if(OnMaximum != null)
                    {
                        OnMaximum(this, new MyEventArgs("You've entered " +
                            value.ToString() +
                            ", but the maximum is " +
                            Maximum.ToString()));
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        //This is the actual method that will be assigned to the event handler
        //within the above class. This is where we perform an action once the
        //event has been triggered.
        static void MaximumReached(object source, MyEventArgs e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e.GetInfo());
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Now lets test the event contained in the above class.
            MyClass MyObject = new MyClass();
            MyObject.OnMaximum += new MyEventHandler(MaximumReached);

            for(int x = 0; x <= 15; x++)
            {
                MyObject.MyValue = x;
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

I have a full discussion of events and delegates in my events article. For the simplest kind of event, you can just declare a public event and the compiler will create both an event and a field to keep track of subscribers:

public event EventHandler Foo;

If you need more complicated subscription/unsubscription logic, you can do that explicitly:

public event EventHandler Foo
{
    add
    {
        // Subscription logic here
    }
    remove
    {
        // Unsubscription logic here
    }
}

You can declare an event with the following code:

public event EventHandler MyOwnEvent;

A custom delegate type instead of EventHandler can be used if needed.

You can find detailed information/tutorials on the use of events in .NET in the article Events Tutorial (MSDN).