[c#] What is the use of "object sender" and "EventArgs e" parameters?

In case of Page_Load, Init and other page events, what is the use of these (object sender, EventArgs e) parameters?

Examples would be more helpful.

This question is related to c# asp.net

The answer is


Those two parameters (or variants of) are sent, by convention, with all events.

  • sender: The object which has raised the event
  • e an instance of EventArgs including, in many cases, an object which inherits from EventArgs. Contains additional information about the event, and sometimes provides ability for code handling the event to alter the event somehow.

In the case of the events you mentioned, neither parameter is particularly useful. The is only ever one page raising the events, and the EventArgs are Empty as there is no further information about the event.

Looking at the 2 parameters separately, here are some examples where they are useful.

sender

Say you have multiple buttons on a form. These buttons could contain a Tag describing what clicking them should do. You could handle all the Click events with the same handler, and depending on the sender do something different

private void HandleButtonClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Button btn = (Button)sender;
    if(btn.Tag == "Hello")
      MessageBox.Show("Hello")
    else if(btn.Tag == "Goodbye")
       Application.Exit();
    // etc.
}

Disclaimer : That's a contrived example; don't do that!

e

Some events are cancelable. They send CancelEventArgs instead of EventArgs. This object adds a simple boolean property Cancel on the event args. Code handling this event can cancel the event:

private void HandleCancellableEvent(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
    if(/* some condition*/)
    {
       // Cancel this event
       e.Cancel = true;
    }
}