# Can we define, emit and listen to Custom Events?

**URL:** <https://forum.canton.network/t/can-we-define-emit-and-listen-to-custom-events/1665>\
**Category:** App Development\
**Created:** [November 19, 2020, 8:30am UTC](https://forum.canton.network/t/can-we-define-emit-and-listen-to-custom-events/1665 "2020-11-19T08:30:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![bernhard](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.canton.network/bernhard/32/356_2.png) [@bernhard](https://forum.canton.network/u/bernhard)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 9:25am UTC](https://forum.canton.network/t/can-we-define-emit-and-listen-to-custom-events/1665/2 "2020-11-19T09:25:01Z")

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There is no special inbuilt for custom events as every choice exercise is an event. So if you want to emit an event, you can just create a choice without an effect:

```haskell
controller (signatory this) can
  nonconsuming MyEvent : ()
    with
      message : Text
    do
      return ()

```

If you exercise that, all you’ll get is an extra node on the transaction tree that you can react to.

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