Remove eventListeners automatically in AS3

I hate removing listeners in AS3. So I created a work-around to autoremove them 🙂 I know there are already some solutions for this, but some of them requires a complete new event system and it is just fun to create your own sources. This class overrides the default behavior of the addEventListener function. It stores references of the listeners inside a Dictionary. The class it selfs listens to the REMOVED_FROM_STAGE event, and when it is removed, then it removes all stored events.

UPDATE 11-10-2010: This code below is a bit outdated.
You’d better use this EventManagedSprite and this EventRemover. BTW: This is all included in FlashFlowFactory. This lightweight framework helps you to easily setup a flash website.

package nl.stroep.display
{
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.utils.Dictionary;
/**
* Simple event managing sprite which automatically removes eventlisteners when the sprite is removed from stage. This class should be extended.
* @author Mark Knol
*/
public class EventManagedSprite extends Sprite
{
private var eventsList:/*Array*/Dictionary = new Dictionary();

public function EventManagedSprite()
{
super.addEventListener(Event.REMOVED_FROM_STAGE, onRemoveEventManagedSprite)
}

private function onRemoveEventManagedSprite(e:Event):void
{
super.removeEventListener(Event.REMOVED_FROM_STAGE, onRemoveEventManagedSprite);

for (var type:String in eventsList)
{
var events:Array = eventsList[type] as Array;

for (var i:int = 0; i < events.length; i++) { var eventObject:EventObject = events[i]; super.removeEventListener( type, eventObject.listener, eventObject.useCapture ); //trace("Auto removed listener ", type, eventObject.listener, "from", this); eventObject.listener = null; eventObject = null; if (events.length == 0) delete eventsList[type]; } } } override public function addEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false, priority:int = 0, useWeakReference:Boolean = false):void { super.addEventListener(type, listener, useCapture, priority, useWeakReference); if (!eventsList[ type ]) { eventsList[ type ] = [ new EventObject( listener, useCapture ) ]; } else { eventsList[ type ].push( new EventObject( listener, useCapture ) ); } } } } final internal class EventObject { public var listener:Function public var useCapture:Boolean public final function EventObject ( listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean ):void { this.listener = listener; this.useCapture = useCapture; } }[/as] Make sure every class you add listeners extends this class to make the most out of it. Otherwise you just need to remove the listeners yourself. Let me know what you think about it. Disclaimer: This class does not detect the eventlisteners on the children of the class. These children should extend the EventManagedSprite class too, otherwise you should remove it manually.