Is it possible to "steal" an event handler from one control and give it to another?

Question

I want do something like this:

Button btn1 = new Button();
btn1.Click += new EventHandler(btn1_Click);
Button btn2 = new Button();
// Take whatever event got assigned to btn1 and assign it to btn2.
btn2.Click += btn1.Click; // The compiler says no...

Where btn1_Click is already defined in the class:

void btn1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //
}

This won't compile, of course ("The event 'System.Windows.Forms.Control.Click' can only appear on the left hand side of += or -="). Is there a way to take the event handler from one control and assign it to another at runtime? If that's not possible, is duplicating the event handler and assigning it to another control at runtime doable?

A couple of points: I have googled the heck out of this one for awhile and found no way of doing it yet. Most of the attempted approaches involve reflection, so if you read my question and think the answer is incredibly obvious, please try to compile the code in Visual Studio first. Or if the answer really is incredibly obvious, please feel free to slap me with it. Thanks, I'm really looking forward to seeing if this is possible.

I know I could just do this:

btn2.Click += new EventHandler(btn1_Click);

That's not what I'm looking for here.

This is also not what I'm looking for:

EventHandler handy = new EventHandler(btn1_Click);
Button btn1 = new Button();
btn1.Click += handy;
Button btn2 = new Button();
btn2.Click += handy;

Answer 1

I did some digging around with @nobugz's solution and came up with this generic version which could be used on most general-purpose objects.

What I found out is that events for, dare I say, automatic events actually are compiled with a backing delegate field of the same name:

So here's one for stealing event handlers for simpler objects:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var d = new Dummy();
        var d2 = new Dummy();

        // Use anonymous methods without saving any references
        d.MyEvents += (sender, e) => { Console.WriteLine("One!"); };
        d.MyEvents += (sender, e) => { Console.WriteLine("Two!"); };

        // Find the backing field and get its value
        var theType = d.GetType();
        var bindingFlags = BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance;

        var backingField = theType.GetField("MyEvents", bindingFlags);
        var backingDelegate = backingField.GetValue(d) as Delegate;

        var handlers = backingDelegate.GetInvocationList();

        // Bind the handlers to the second instance
        foreach (var handler in handlers)
            d2.MyEvents += handler as EventHandler;

        // See if the handlers are fired
        d2.DoRaiseEvent();

        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

class Dummy
{
    public event EventHandler MyEvents;

    public void DoRaiseEvent() { MyEvents(this, new EventArgs()); }
}

Thought it might be useful to some.

But do note that the way events are wired in Windows Forms components is rather different. They are optimized so that multiple events doesn't take up a lot of memory just holding nulls. So it'll need a little more digging around, but @nobugz has already done that :-)

The article Delegates and events about combined delegates might help clarify a lot of points in answers.

Answer 2

Yeah, it's technically possible. Reflection is required because many of the members are private and internal. Start a new Windows Forms project and add two buttons. Then:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Reflection;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 {
  public partial class Form1 : Form {
    public Form1() {
      InitializeComponent();
      button1.Click += new EventHandler(button1_Click);
      // Get secret click event key
      FieldInfo eventClick = typeof(Control).GetField("EventClick", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static);
      object secret = eventClick.GetValue(null);
      // Retrieve the click event
      PropertyInfo eventsProp = typeof(Component).GetProperty("Events", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
      EventHandlerList events = (EventHandlerList)eventsProp.GetValue(button1, null);
      Delegate click = events[secret];
      // Remove it from button1, add it to button2
      events.RemoveHandler(secret, click);
      events = (EventHandlerList)eventsProp.GetValue(button2, null);
      events.AddHandler(secret, click);
    }

    void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
      MessageBox.Show("Yada");
    }
  }
}

If this convinces you that Microsoft tried really hard to prevent your from doing this, you understood the code.

Answer 3

No, you can't do this. The reason is encapsulation - events are just subscribe/unsubscribe, i.e. they don't let you "peek inside" to see what handlers are already subscribed.

What you could do is derive from Button, and create a public method which calls OnClick. Then you just need to make btn1 an instance of that class, and subscribe a handler to btn2 which calls btn1.RaiseClickEvent() or whatever you call the method.

I'm not sure I'd really recommend it though. What are you actually trying to do? What's the bigger picture?

EDIT: I see you've accepted the version which fetches the current set of events with reflection, but in case you're interested in the alternative which calls the OnXXX handler in the original control, I've got a sample here. I originally copied all events, but that leads to some very odd effects indeed. Note that this version means that if anyone subscribes to an event in the original button after calling CopyEvents, it's still "hooked up" - i.e. it doesn't really matter when you associate the two.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {

        TextBox output = new TextBox 
        { 
            Multiline = true,
            Height = 350,
            Width = 200,
            Location = new Point (5, 15)
        };
        Button original = new Button
        { 
            Text = "Original",
            Location = new Point (210, 15)
        };
        original.Click += Log(output, "Click!");
        original.MouseEnter += Log(output, "MouseEnter");
        original.MouseLeave += Log(output, "MouseLeave");

        Button copyCat = new Button
        {
            Text = "CopyCat",
            Location = new Point (210, 50)
        };

        CopyEvents(original, copyCat, "Click", "MouseEnter", "MouseLeave");

        Form form = new Form 
        { 
            Width = 400, 
            Height = 420,
            Controls = { output, original, copyCat }
        };

        Application.Run(form);
    }

    private static void CopyEvents(object source, object target, params string[] events)
    {
        Type sourceType = source.GetType();
        Type targetType = target.GetType();
        MethodInfo invoker = typeof(MethodAndSource).GetMethod("Invoke");
        foreach (String eventName in events)
        {
            EventInfo sourceEvent = sourceType.GetEvent(eventName);
            if (sourceEvent == null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Can't find {0}.{1}", sourceType.Name, eventName);
                continue;
            }

            // Note: we currently assume that all events are compatible with
            // EventHandler. This method could do with more error checks...

            MethodInfo raiseMethod = sourceType.GetMethod("On"+sourceEvent.Name, 
                                                          BindingFlags.Instance | 
                                                          BindingFlags.Public | 
                                                          BindingFlags.NonPublic);
            if (raiseMethod == null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Can't find {0}.On{1}", sourceType.Name, sourceEvent.Name);
                continue;
            }
            EventInfo targetEvent = targetType.GetEvent(sourceEvent.Name);
            if (targetEvent == null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Can't find {0}.{1}", targetType.Name, sourceEvent.Name);
                continue;
            }
            MethodAndSource methodAndSource = new MethodAndSource(raiseMethod, source);
            Delegate handler = Delegate.CreateDelegate(sourceEvent.EventHandlerType,
                                                       methodAndSource,
                                                       invoker);

            targetEvent.AddEventHandler(target, handler);
        }
    }

    private static EventHandler Log(TextBox output, string text)
    {
        return (sender, args) => output.Text += text + "\r\n";
    }

    private class MethodAndSource
    {
        private readonly MethodInfo method;
        private readonly object source;

        internal MethodAndSource(MethodInfo method, object source)
        {
            this.method = method;
            this.source = source;
        }

        public void Invoke(object sender, EventArgs args)
        {
            method.Invoke(source, new object[] { args });
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

You could use a common event handler for your buttons and your picture boxes (as per the comments on an earlier answer) and then use the 'sender' object to determine how to handle the event at runtime.