Event handling

In computing, an event is an action or occurrence recognized by software that may be handled by the software. Computer events can be generated or triggered by the system, by the user or in other ways. Typically, events are handled synchronously with the program flow, that is, the software may have one or more dedicated places where events are handled, frequently an event loop. A source of events includes the user, who may interact with the software by way of, for example, keystrokes on the keyboard. Another source is a hardware device such as a timer. Software can also trigger its own set of events into the event loop, e.g. to communicate the completion of a task. Software that changes its behavior in response to events is said to be event-driven, often with the goal of being interactive.

Event driven systems are typically used when there is some asynchronous external activity that needs to be handled by a program; for example, a user who presses a button on his mouse. An event driven system typically runs an event loop, that keeps waiting for such activities, e.g. input from devices or internal alarms. When one of these occurs, it collects data about the event and dispatches the event to the event handler software that will deal with it.

A program can choose to ignore events, and there may be libraries to dispatch an event to multiple handlers that may be programmed to listen for a particular event. The data associated with an event at a minimum specifies what type of event it is, but may include other information such as when it occurred, who or what caused it to occur, and extra data provided by the event source to the handler about how the event should be processed.

Events are typically used in user interfaces, where actions in the outside world (mouse clicks, window-resizing, keyboard presses, messages from other programs, etc.) are handled by the program as a series of events. Programs written for many windowing environments consist predominantly of event handlers.

Events can also be used at instruction set level, where they complement interrupts. Compared to interrupts, events are normally handled synchronously: the program explicitly waits for an event to be serviced (typically by calling an instruction that dispatches the next event), whereas an interrupt can demand service at any time.

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