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JS Bits Bill
JS Bits Bill

Posted on • Updated on

addEventListener "once"

If you want to add an event callback but have it run only once, you can simply use the once option in the method's options object:

  document.body.addEventListener('click', () => {
    console.log('I run only once! 😇');
  }, { once: true });
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This prevents the need to otherwise immediately remove the event listener after the callback first fires (which I've been guilty of!):

  document.body.addEventListener('click', cb);

  function cb() {
    console.log('Hi! 👋');
    document.body.removeEventListener('click', cb);
  }
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The more you know! 🌈

Links

MDN Article on addEventListener()


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Top comments (5)

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salvadorweb89 profile image
Salvador Ruiz

Very usefull, thanks!

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naozumi520 profile image
Naozumi

Amazing, thanks!

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jyoung4242 profile image
Justin Young

this just saved me a ton of headaches

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asosjamesinnes profile image
James Innes

Keep in mind it's best practice to explicitly remove them in React (and other frameworks) to ovoid memory leaks where they might not have been removed after the callback has finished and the component has already gone through the mount/unmount lifecycle regardless.

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vkrms profile image
Pavel M

wow dude that's pretty cool