Dispatch controller zf2 event manager - php

Question

I have a base controller named MyController
I extend my Controller from MyController instead of AbstractActionController
What's wrong with this code ?
It doesn't work :
$sharedEventManager->attach('MyController', 'dispatch', function ($e) {
$controller = $e->getTarget();
},100) ;
but this does :
$sharedEventManager->attach('Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController', 'dispatch', function ($e) {
$controller = $e->getTarget();
},100) ;

Answer 1

The first parameter of the SharedEventManager::attach() is the identity of the event manager to target. This identity is dynamically assigned for any class that is event capable (implements Zend\EventManager\EventManagerAwareInterface) or has otherwise had it's identity set via $eventManager->setIdentity().
The question refers to the \Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController; this itself is an identity given to any controller that extends \Zend\Mvc\AbstractActionController (among others), allowing for just one id to attach() to target all controllers.
To target just one controller (which is perfectly valid, there are many use cases), you can do so in two ways:
via the SharedEventManager, external to the controller class (as you have been doing)
directly fetching said controller's event manager and handling the events within the controller class.
via SharedEventManager
Use the fully qualified class name as this is is added as an identity to the event manager
$sharedEventManager->attach(
'MyModule\Controller\FooController', 'dispatch', function($e){
// do some work
});
Within controller
I modify the normal attachDefaultListeners() method (which is called automatically), this is where you can attach events directly.
namespace MyModule\Controller;
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController;
use Zend\EventManager\EventInterface;
class FooController extends AbstractActionController
{
protected function attachDefaultListeners()
{
// make sure you attach the defaults!
parent::attachDefaultListeners();
// Now add your own listeners
$this->getEventManager()->attach('dispatch', array($this, 'doSomeWork'));
}
public function doSomeWork(EventInterface $event) {
// do some work
}
}

Answer 2

Why do you use your own base controller? there is no real benefit of doing that, unless you have rare edge case scenario.
Your base controller class is missing this part from AbstractController:
/**
* Set the event manager instance used by this context
*
* #param EventManagerInterface $events
* #return AbstractController
*/
public function setEventManager(EventManagerInterface $events)
{
$events->setIdentifiers(array(
'Zend\Stdlib\DispatchableInterface',
__CLASS__,
get_class($this),
$this->eventIdentifier,
substr(get_class($this), 0, strpos(get_class($this), '\\'))
));
$this->events = $events;
$this->attachDefaultListeners();
return $this;
}
See setIdentifiers call there? That is why second example works.
Also i suspect you might not actually trigger dispatch event in dispatch() method of your controller
As side note: you should never create classes without top level namespace. Eg all my classes use Xrks\ vendor namespace