Event Subscribers and Dependency Injection Tags

Here's the challenge: add a function that will be called on every request, right at the beginning, before any controller is called. This means we should hook into the kernel.request event.

Create an Event Subscriber

In the Jurassic directory - well, it doesn't matter where - add a new DinoListener class. Next, make this class implement EventSubscriberInterface:

If you're not super cool with interfaces yet, hit pause and go practice with them in the Object Oriented Level 3 course.

This interface forces us to have 1 method: getSubcribedEvents(). In PhpStorm, hit command+n to bring up the Generate menu, select "Implement Methods", and highlight this. That's a nice shortcut to add the one method we need:

We need to tell Drupal which event we want to listen to and what method to call when that event happens. This method returns an array that says exactly that. Use KernelEvents::REQUEST as the key and hit tab to auto-complete and get the use statement. But hold on, that is just a constant that means kernel.request. You can totally use the string kernel.request if you want to. The value is the method to call. Use, onKernelRequest():

Up top, create that method: public function onKernelRequest(). Every event listener is passed exactly one argument: an event object:

The cool thing is that this object will hold any information your function will need. The tricky thing is that this is a different object depending on which event you're listening to.

No worries, let's just var_dump() it and see what it is!

Configuring an Event Subscriber

Ok, this class is setup. The last step is to tell Drupal we have an event subscriber. How do you do that? Register this class as a service. Get used to that answer.

In dino_roar.services.yml, add a new service - the name doesn't matter. Set the class to the full namespace. In this case, there are no constructor arguments. Add an arguments key, but leave it blank with square brackets:

Congratulations! You've created a normal, boring service... but Drupal still doesn't know it's an event subscriber. Somehow, we need to tell Drupal:

Yo, this is not a normal service, this is an event subscriber! I want you to call the getSubscribedEvents() method so you know about my kernel.request listener!

Whenever you want to raise your hand and scream "Drupal, this service is special, use it for this core purpose", you're going to use a tag. The syntax for a tag is ugly, but here it goes. Add tags, add a new line, indent, add a dash, then a set of curly braces. Every tag has a name: this one is event_subscriber:

By doing this, you've now told Drupal's core that our DynoListener service is an event subscriber. It knows to go in and find out what events we're subscribed to.

What are these Dependency Injection Tags?

***seealso Tags work via a system called "Compiler Passes". These are shared with Symfony, and we talk a lot more about them here: Compiler Pass and Tags.

There are other tags that for other things. For example, if you want to add some custom functions to Twig, you'll create a class that extends Twig_Extension, register it as a service, and tag it with twig.extension. This tells Twig, "Yo, I have a Twig Extension here - use it!".

If you're using tags, then you're probably doing something geeky-cool, hooking into some core part of the system. And you don't need to know about all the tags. You'll Google "how do I register an event subscriber" and see that it uses a tag called event_subscriber. You just need to understand how they work: that it's your way of making your service special.

Ok, back to the action. Rebuild the cache:

drupal cache:rebuild

Since the kernel.request event happens on every request, we should be able to refresh and see the var_dump(). Great Scott! There it is! Now, let's do something in this!