8.7 KiB
title: Injector summary: Introduction to using Dependency Injection within SilverStripe.
Injector
The Injector class is the central manager of inter-class dependencies in SilverStripe. It offers developers the ability to declare the dependencies a class type has, or to change the nature of the dependencies defined by other developers.
Some of the goals of dependency injection are:
- Simplified instantiation of objects
- Providing a uniform way of declaring and managing inter-object dependencies
- Making class dependencies configurable
- Simplifying the process of overriding or replacing core behaviour
- Improve testability of code
- Promoting abstraction of logic
The following sums up the simplest usage of the Injector
it creates a new object of type MyClassName
through create
use SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector;
$object = Injector::inst()->create('MyClassName');
The benefit of constructing objects through this syntax is ClassName
can be swapped out using the
Configuration API by developers.
mysite/_config/app.yml
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
MyClassName:
class: MyBetterClassName
Repeated calls to create()
create a new object each time.
$object = Injector::inst()->create('MyClassName');
$object2 = Injector::inst()->create('MyClassName');
echo $object !== $object2;
// returns true;
Singleton Pattern
The Injector
API can be used for the singleton pattern through get()
. Subsequent calls to get
return the same
object instance as the first call.
// sets up MyClassName as a singleton
$object = Injector::inst()->get('MyClassName');
$object2 = Injector::inst()->get('MyClassName');
echo ($object === $object2);
// returns true;
Dependencies
The Injector
API can be used to define the types of $dependencies
that an object requires.
use SilverStripe\Control\Controller;
class MyController extends Controller
{
// both of these properties will be automatically
// set by the injector on object creation
public $permissions;
public $textProperty;
// we declare the types for each of the properties on the object. Anything we pass in via the Injector API must
// match these data types.
static $dependencies = [
'textProperty' => 'a string value',
'permissions' => '%$PermissionService',
];
}
When creating a new instance of MyController
the dependencies on that class will be met.
$object = Injector::inst()->get('MyController');
echo ($object->permissions instanceof PermissionService);
// returns true;
echo (is_string($object->textProperty));
// returns true;
The Configuration YAML does the hard work of configuring those $dependencies
for us.
mysite/_config/app.yml
Injector:
PermissionService:
class: MyCustomPermissionService
MyController
properties:
textProperty: 'My Text Value'
Now the dependencies will be replaced with our configuration.
$object = Injector::inst()->get('MyController');
echo ($object->permissions instanceof MyCustomPermissionService);
// returns true;
echo ($object->textProperty == 'My Text Value');
// returns true;
As well as properties, method calls can also be specified:
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
Logger:
class: Monolog\Logger
calls:
- [ pushHandler, [ %$DefaultHandler ] ]
Using constants as variables
Any of the core constants can be used as a service argument by quoting with back ticks "`". Please ensure you also quote the entire value (see below).
CachingService:
class: SilverStripe\Cache\CacheProvider
properties:
CacheDir: '`TEMP_DIR`'
Note: undefined variables will be replaced with null.
Factories
Some services require non-trivial construction which means they must be created by a factory class. To do this, create
a factory class which implements the Factory interface. You can then specify
the factory
key in the service definition, and the factory service will be used.
An example using the MyFactory
service to create instances of the MyService
service is shown below:
mysite/_config/app.yml
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
MyService:
factory: MyFactory
mysite/code/MyFactory.php
class MyFactory implements SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Factory
{
public function create($service, array $params = [])
{
return new MyServiceImplementation();
}
}
// Will use MyFactoryImplementation::create() to create the service instance.
$instance = Injector::inst()->get('MyService');
Dependency overrides
To override the $dependency
declaration for a class, define the following configuration file.
mysite/_config/app.yml
MyController:
dependencies:
textProperty: a string value
permissions: %$PermissionService
Managed objects
Simple dependencies can be specified by the $dependencies
, but more complex configurations are possible by specifying
constructor arguments, or by specifying more complex properties such as lists.
These more complex configurations are defined in Injector
configuration blocks and are read by the Injector
at
runtime.
Assuming a class structure such as
class RestrictivePermissionService
{
private $database;
public function setDatabase($d)
{
$this->database = $d;
}
}
class MySQLDatabase
{
private $username;
private $password;
public function __construct($username, $password)
{
$this->username = $username;
$this->password = $password;
}
}
And the following configuration..
---
name: MyController
---
MyController:
dependencies:
permissions: %$PermissionService
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
PermissionService:
class: RestrictivePermissionService
properties:
database: %$MySQLDatabase
MySQLDatabase
constructor:
0: 'dbusername'
1: 'dbpassword'
Calling..
// sets up ClassName as a singleton
$controller = Injector::inst()->get('MyController');
Would setup the following
- Create an object of type
MyController
- Look through the dependencies and call get('PermissionService')
- Load the configuration for PermissionService, and create an object of type
RestrictivePermissionService
- Look at the properties to be injected and look for the config for
MySQLDatabase
- Create a MySQLDatabase class, passing dbusername and dbpassword as the parameters to the constructor.
Service inheritance
By default, services registered with Injector do not inherit from one another; This is because it registers named services, which may not be actual classes, and thus should not behave as though they were.
Thus if you want an object to have the injected dependencies of a service of another name, you must assign a reference to that service.
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
JSONServiceDefinition:
class: JSONServiceImplementor
properties:
Serialiser: JSONSerialiser
GZIPJSONProvider: %$JSONServiceDefinition
Injector::inst()->get('GZIPJSONProvider')
will then be an instance of JSONServiceImplementor
with the injected
properties.
It is important here to note that the 'class' property of the parent service will be inherited directly as well. If class is not specified, then the class will be inherited from the outer service name, not the inner service name.
For example with this config:
SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector:
Connector:
properties:
AsString: true
ServiceConnector: %$Connector
Both Connector
and ServiceConnector
will have the AsString
property set to true, but the resulting
instances will be classes which match their respective service names, due to the lack of a class
specification.
Testing with Injector
In situations where injector states must be temporarily overridden, it is possible to create nested Injector instances
which may be later discarded, reverting the application to the original state. This is done through nest
and unnest
.
This is useful when writing test cases, as certain services may be necessary to override for a single method call.
use SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector;
// Setup default service
Injector::inst()->registerService(new LiveService(), 'ServiceName');
// Test substitute service temporarily
Injector::nest();
Injector::inst()->registerService(new TestingService(), 'ServiceName');
$service = Injector::inst()->get('ServiceName');
// ... do something with $service
// revert changes
Injector::unnest();