Service Locator using static methods - dependency-injection

In the code of the project I'm working on I encountered a strange approach.
The UI layer gets dependecies using a sort of Service Locator which is a class with static methods:
public class ServiceManager {
public static MailService getMailService() {
...
}
public static UserInfoService getUserInfoService() {
...
}
...
}
The dependencies that are "distributed" by this class are injected to it using Spring framework.
What could be the reason for this approach? I can see only downsides. Since the locator methods are static, there is no interface. The absence of interface makes it harder to reason about the purpose of the class. Clients of this class are tightly coupled to it (remember, no interface there), making them impossible to reuse elsewhere.
Wouldn't it be much better to let Spring inject dependencies in the UI classes directly?

With most UI frameworks, it is often very hard (if not impossible) to use constructor injection in the UI classes. In that case it is common to revert to the Service Locator pattern, but only -I repeat only- in the UI classes.

Related

DI Interception vs. AOP

From Unity documentation:
Unity interception enables you to effectively capture calls to objects and add additional functionality to the target object. Interception is useful when you want to modify the behavior for individual objects but not the entire class, very much as you would do when using the Decorator pattern. It provides a flexible approach for adding new behaviors to an object at run time.
Since the very same DP is used in Aspect Oriented Programming (see here)
...In the .NET Framework, the most commonly used of these techniques are post-processing and code interception. The former is the technique used by PostSharp and the latter is used by dependency injection (DI) containers such as Castle DynamicProxy and Unity. These tools usually use a design pattern named Decorator or Proxy to perform the code interception.
In these quotations Proxy is used as a synonym of Decorator despite they are very alike there are some differences.
So, my question is:
What (and most importantly why) AOP has to be preferred over DI interception? Or is DI interception a better way to augment a object's functionality without changing its implementation? In general, if one should be preferred over the other then why?
Here are some of the limitations with using DI container interception:
1) Interception using a DI container is limited to objects that were created using the container.
For example, you might have a factory that you register with your container. Objects that such factory create will not have interception support.
Consider the following code:
public interface IHelperFactory
{
IHelper CreateHelper();
}
public interface IHelper
{
void HelpMe();
}
class Helper : IHelper
{
public void HelpMe()
{
}
}
class HelperFactory : IHelperFactory
{
public IHelper CreateHelper()
{
return new Helper();
}
}
If you register HelperFactory with the container, then the CreateHelper method can be intercepted, however, calls to IHelper.HelpMe will not be intercepted.
2) Another limitation of interception through DI containers is that you cannot intercept private methods unless you change them to become virtual protected methods and use virtual method interceptors, which in turn disallow you to intercept objects registered as instances.
3) (IMO) It might not be a good idea to use a DI container in the first place. See my article here

DDD: Service and Repositories Instances Injected with DI as Singletons

I've recently been challenged on my view that singletons are only good for logging and configuration. And with Dependency Injection I am now not seeing a reason why you can't use your services or repositories as singletons.
There is no coupling because DI injects a singleton instance through an interface. The only reasonable argument is that your services might have shared state, but if you think about it, services should be stand alone units without any shared state. Yes they do get injected with the repositories but you only have one way that a repository instance is created and passed to the service. Since repositories should never have a shared state I don't see any reasons why it also cannot be a singleton.
So for example a simple service class would look like this:
public class GraphicService : IGraphicService
{
private IGraphicRepository _rep;
public GraphicService(IGraphicRepository rep)
{
_rep = rep;
}
public void CreateGraphic()
{
...
_rep.SaveGraphic(graphic):
}
}
No state is shared in service except repository which also doesn't change or have it's own state.
So the question is, if your services and repositories don't have any state and only passed in, through interface, configuration or anything else that's instantiated the same way they then why wouldn't you have them as singleton?
If you're using the Singleton pattern i.e a static property of a class, then you have the tightly coupling problem.
If you need just a single instance of a class and you're using a DI Container to control its lifetime, then it's not a problem as there are none of the drawbacks. The app doesn't know there is a singleton in place, only the DI Container knows about it.
Bottom line, a single instance of a class is a valid coding requirement, the only issue is how you implement it. The Di Container is the best approach. the Singleton pattern is for quick'n dirty apps where you don't care enough about maintainability and testing.
Some projects use singleton for dependence lookup before dependency injection gets populated. for example iBATIS jpetstore if I'm not mistaken. It's convenient that you can access your dependence gloablly like
public class GraphicService : IGraphicService
{
private IGraphicRepository _rep = GraphicRepository.getInstance();
public void CreateGraphic()
{
...
_rep.SaveGraphic(graphic):
}
}
But this harms testability (for not easy to replace dependence with test doubles) and introduces implicit strong dependence (IGraphicService depends on both the abstraction and the implementation).
Dependeny injection sovles these. I don't see why can't use singleton in your case, but it doesn't add much value when using DI.

IoC - Autowiring for objects that are created inside of components

What bothers me about IoC and autowiring is the usability of IoC for objects that are created.
Lets say I have the a static Utils class, that is used across the system. When I decided to use IoC and DI, I easily changed Utils to be non-static and have all my components receive its instance.
However, auto-wiring works well only for components that are created during bootstrap, for objects that are created during run-time or as response of user operations, and that use Utils, auto-wiring doesn't work. Instead, I have to manually pass instance of Utils to every instance of every object that is created during runtime.
The only way around it that I can see is using the anti-pattern of passing the IoC container around, which I certainly wouldn't want to do.
Is there another way? Or am I forced to pass Utils manually around to every instance and class?
Note: This isn't a question of design. Sure, I could minimize the usage of this metaphorical Utils in various ways, but in many situations it is unavoidable.
The only way around it that I can see is using the anti-pattern of
passing the IoC container around, which I certainly wouldn't want to
do.
The answer is simply: use an abstract factory.
By defining the factory interface in the application and the factory implementation in the Composition Root (your bootstrapper code) you can prevent using the Service Locator anti-pattern. This factory implementation can hold a reference to the container and call it to request instances. Because that implementation is part of your bootstrapping logic, that implementation is a infrastructure component, and you are not using it as a service locator.
Example:
public interface IUnitOfWorkFactory
{
IUnitOfWork CreateNew();
}
Implementation in composition root:
internal class SimpleInjectorUnitOfWorkFactory
: IUnitOfWorkFactory
{
private readonly SimpleInjector.Container container;
public SimpleInjectorUnitOfWorkFactory(Container container)
{
this.container = container;
}
public IUnitOfWork CreateNew()
{
return this.container.GetInstance<IUnitOfWork>();
}
}

In dependency Injection what is a dependency?

I'he read a lot about this but still i am unclear about the things. We say that DI means injecting dependencies into dependent components at runtime
Q1
What is a dependency ? If these are the objects created at runtime?
If yes, does that mean we are injecting values into variables by creating an object(created by framework i.e instantianting the bean via xml file with setter/constructor injection)
Q2
We do the DI to do work without object intervention?
Q1
From Wikipedia, all elements in DI pattern are objects. The dependent object specifies what it needs using interfaces. The injector object decides what concrete classes (instantiated objects) can satisfy the requirement and provide them to the dependent object.
So, that becomes a yes to the second part.
Q2
Again from Wikipedia:
The primary purpose of the dependency injection pattern is to allow
selection among multiple implementations of a given dependency
interface at runtime, or via configuration files, instead of at
compile time.
As an example consider a security service that can work different implementations of an Encoder. The different encoding algorithm could include SHA, MD5 and others. The security service only specifies that it needs an instance of "an encoding algorithm". The runtime DI environment then will look to find an object that is providing the interface of Encoder and then injects to the security service. In line with DI, the security service is also taking advantage of Inversion of Control (IoC); i.e. it does not itself decide what implementation to use but it is the DI runtime that takes that decision.
Not a elaborate answer to make it just simpler.
Ques1:
class Dependent {
propertyA = new PropertyA();
propertyB = new PropertyB();
}
Here Dependent is dependent to propertyA and propertyB. Above relation is an example of dependency.
If these are the objects created at runtime? Yes.
If yes....? Yes too
Ques2: Yes.
Detail is included below
Scenario 1:
class Dependent {
DBConnection connection = new OracleConnection();
}
Dependent class is highly coupled. Since there is no way to change the connection unless we change the code. So if customer need MySQLConnection() we will have to change the code and give them another exe/jar.
Scenario 2:
class Dependent {
DBConnection connection = ConnectionFactory.createConnection();
}
This is much better since, ConnectionFactory will be able to read some configuration and create necessary connection.
But still, it raises some difficulty to mock the Dependent class. It is hard to create mock in these scenarios. Then what?
Scenario 3:
class Dependent {
DBConnection connection;
setConnection(DBConnection connection) {
this.connecttion = connection;
}
}
class DependencyInjector {
inject() {
// wire them together every dependent & their dependency!
Dependent dependent = indentiyDepenentSomeSmartWay();
DBConnection connection = indentiyConnectionSomeSmartWay();
dependent.setConnection(connection);
}
}
Our DependencyInjector is a smart class, know all the necessary information! Above Dependent class is clean & simple. It is easy mock them for unit test, configurable using configuration.
Those object creation & coupling is detached!
To answer your questions in simple words,
For #1 :
Dependency injection is something about satisfying the need of one object by giving it the object it requires.
Let see an example :
Generally in an enterprise application we use an architecture where in services call a DAO layer and DAO does all the database related stuff. So service need and object of DAO to call all the DAO methods.
Considering we have an entity object - Person.
Lets say we have a DAO - PersonDAO.
public interface PersonDAO {
void addPerson(Person person);
void updatePerson(Person person);
void deletePerson(int personId);
}
and a service - PersonService.
public class PersonServiceImpl {
private PersonDAO personDAO;
public void addPerson() {
//some code specific to service.
//some code to create Person obj.
personDAO.add(person);
}
}
As you can see PersonService is using PersonDAO object to call its methods. PersonService depends on PersonDAO. So PersonDAO is dependency and PersonService is dependent object.
Normally in frameworks like Spring these dependencies are injected by frameworks itself. When application context is loaded all these dependency objects are created and put in Container and whenever needed they are used. The concept of Inversion of Control(IoC) is very closely related to Dependency Injection because of the way the dependency object is created.
E.g You could have created the PersonDAO object in PersonService itself as
PersonDAO personDAO = new PersonDAOImpl();
But in case of spring you are just defining a property for PersonDAO in PersonService and providing a setter for it which is used by spring to set the dependency. Here the creation of dependency is taken care by framework instead of the class which is using it hence it is called Inversion of Control.
For #2 : Yes. You are right.

Inversion of Control vs Dependency Injection

According to the paper written by Martin Fowler, inversion of control is the principle where the control flow of a program is inverted: instead of the programmer controlling the flow of a program, the external sources (framework, services, other components) take control of it. It's like we plug something into something else. He mentioned an example about EJB 2.0:
For example the Session Bean interface
defines ejbRemove, ejbPassivate
(stored to secondary storage), and
ejbActivate (restored from passive
state). You don't get to control when
these methods are called, just what
they do. The container calls us, we
don't call it.
This leads to the difference between framework and library:
Inversion of Control is a key part of
what makes a framework different to a
library. A library is essentially a
set of functions that you can call,
these days usually organized into
classes. Each call does some work and
returns control to the client.
I think, the point of view that DI is IOC, means the dependency of an object is inverted: instead of it controlling its own dependencies, life cycle... something else does it for you. But, as you told me about DI by hands, DI is not necessarily IOC. We can still have DI and no IOC.
However, in this paper (from the pococapsule, another IOC Framework for C/C++), it suggests that because of IOC and DI, the IOC containers and DI frameworks are far more superior to J2EE, since J2EE mixes the framework code into the components, thus not making it Plain Old Java/C++ Object (POJO/POCO).
Inversion of Control Containers other than the Dependency Injection pattern (Archive link)
Additional reading to understand what's the problem with old Component-Based Development Framework, which leads to the second paper above: Why and what of Inversion of Control (Archive link)
My Question: What exactly is IOC and DI? I am confused. Based on pococapsule, IOC is something more significant than just inversion of the control between objects or programmers and frameworks.
The Inversion-of-Control (IoC) pattern, is about providing any kind of callback, which "implements" and/or controls reaction, instead of acting ourselves directly (in other words, inversion and/or redirecting control to the external handler/controller).
For example, rather than having the application call the implementations provided by a library (also known as toolkit), the library and/or framework calls the implementations provided by the application.
The Dependency-Injection (DI) pattern is a more specific version of IoC pattern, where implementations are passed into an object through constructors/setters/service lookups, which the object will "depend" on in order to behave correctly.
Every DI implementation can be considered IoC, but one should not call it IoC, because implementing Dependency-Injection is harder than callback (Don't lower your product's worth by using the general term "IoC" instead).
IoC without using DI, for example, would be the Template pattern because the implementation can only be changed through sub-classing.
DI frameworks are designed to make use of DI, and can define interfaces (or Annotations in Java) to make it easy to pass in the implementations.
IoC containers are DI frameworks that can work outside of the programming language. In some you can configure in metadata files (e.g. XML), the implementations to be used, which are less invasive. With some you can do IoC that would normally be impossible, like injecting an implementation at pointcuts.
See also this Martin Fowler's article.
In short, IoC is a much broader term that includes, but is not limited to, DI
The term Inversion of Control (IoC) originally meant any sort of programming style where an overall
framework or run-time controlled the program flow
Before DI had a name, people started to refer to frameworks that manage Dependencies as Inversion
of Control Containers, and soon, the meaning of IoC gradually drifted towards that particular meaning: Inversion of Control over Dependencies.
Inversion of Control (IoC) means that objects do not create other objects on which they rely to do their work. Instead, they get the objects that they need from an outside source (for example, an xml configuration file).
Dependency Injection (DI) means that this is done without the object intervention, usually by a framework component that passes constructor parameters and set properties.
source
IoC (Inversion of Control) :- It’s a generic term and implemented in several ways (events, delegates etc).
DI (Dependency Injection) :- DI is a sub-type of IoC and is implemented by constructor injection, setter injection or Interface injection.
But, Spring supports only the following two types :
Setter Injection
Setter-based DI is realized by calling setter methods on the user’s beans after invoking a no-argument constructor or no-argument static factory method to instantiate their bean.
Constructor Injection
Constructor-based DI is realized by invoking a constructor with a number of arguments, each representing a collaborator.Using this we can validate that the injected beans are not null and fail fast(fail on compile time and not on run-time), so while starting application itself we get NullPointerException: bean does not exist. Constructor injection is Best practice to inject dependencies.
DI is a subset of IoC
IoC means that objects do not create other objects on which they rely to do their work. Instead, they get the objects that they need from an outside service (for example, xml file or single app service). 2 implementations of IoC, I use, are DI and ServiceLocator.
DI means the IoC principle of getting dependent object is done without using concrete objects but abstractions (interfaces). This makes all components chain testable, cause higher level component doesn't depend on lower level component, only from the interface. Mocks implement these interfaces.
Here are some other techniques to achieve IoC.
IOC (Inversion Of Control): Giving control to the container to get an instance of the object is called Inversion of Control, means instead of you are creating an object using the new operator, let the container do that for you.
DI (Dependency Injection): Way of injecting properties to an object is called Dependency Injection.
We have three types of Dependency Injection:
Constructor Injection
Setter/Getter Injection
Interface Injection
Spring supports only Constructor Injection and Setter/Getter Injection.
Since all the answers emphasize on theory I would like to demonstrate with an example first approach:
Suppose we are building an application which contains a feature to send SMS confirmation messages once the order has been shipped.
We will have two classes, one is responsible for sending the SMS (SMSService), and another responsible for capturing user inputs (UIHandler), our code will look as below:
public class SMSService
{
public void SendSMS(string mobileNumber, string body)
{
SendSMSUsingGateway(mobileNumber, body);
}
private void SendSMSUsingGateway(string mobileNumber, string body)
{
/*implementation for sending SMS using gateway*/
}
}
public class UIHandler
{
public void SendConfirmationMsg(string mobileNumber)
{
SMSService _SMSService = new SMSService();
_SMSService.SendSMS(mobileNumber, "Your order has been shipped successfully!");
}
}
Above implementation is not wrong but there are few issues:
-) Suppose On development environment, you want to save SMSs sent to a text file instead of using SMS gateway, to achieve this; we will end up changing the concrete implementation of (SMSService) with another implementation, we are losing flexibility and forced to rewrite the code in this case.
-) We’ll end up mixing responsibilities of classes, our (UIHandler) should never know about the concrete implementation of (SMSService), this should be done outside the classes using “Interfaces”. When this is implemented, it will give us the ability to change the behavior of the system by swapping the (SMSService) used with another mock service which implements the same interface, this service will save SMSs to a text file instead of sending to mobileNumber.
To fix the above issues we use Interfaces which will be implemented by our (SMSService) and the new (MockSMSService), basically the new Interface (ISMSService) will expose the same behaviors of both services as the code below:
public interface ISMSService
{
void SendSMS(string phoneNumber, string body);
}
Then we will change our (SMSService) implementation to implement the (ISMSService) interface:
public class SMSService : ISMSService
{
public void SendSMS(string mobileNumber, string body)
{
SendSMSUsingGateway(mobileNumber, body);
}
private void SendSMSUsingGateway(string mobileNumber, string body)
{
/*implementation for sending SMS using gateway*/
Console.WriteLine("Sending SMS using gateway to mobile:
{0}. SMS body: {1}", mobileNumber, body);
}
}
Now we will be able to create new mock up service (MockSMSService) with totally different implementation using the same interface:
public class MockSMSService :ISMSService
{
public void SendSMS(string phoneNumber, string body)
{
SaveSMSToFile(phoneNumber,body);
}
private void SaveSMSToFile(string mobileNumber, string body)
{
/*implementation for saving SMS to a file*/
Console.WriteLine("Mocking SMS using file to mobile:
{0}. SMS body: {1}", mobileNumber, body);
}
}
At this point, we can change the code in (UIHandler) to use the concrete implementation of the service (MockSMSService) easily as below:
public class UIHandler
{
public void SendConfirmationMsg(string mobileNumber)
{
ISMSService _SMSService = new MockSMSService();
_SMSService.SendSMS(mobileNumber, "Your order has been shipped successfully!");
}
}
We have achieved a lot of flexibility and implemented separation of concerns in our code, but still we need to do a change on the code base to switch between the two SMS Services. So we need to implement Dependency Injection.
To achieve this, we need to implement a change to our (UIHandler) class constructor to pass the dependency through it, by doing this, the code which uses the (UIHandler) can determine which concrete implementation of (ISMSService) to use:
public class UIHandler
{
private readonly ISMSService _SMSService;
public UIHandler(ISMSService SMSService)
{
_SMSService = SMSService;
}
public void SendConfirmationMsg(string mobileNumber)
{
_SMSService.SendSMS(mobileNumber, "Your order has been shipped successfully!");
}
}
Now the UI form which will talk with class (UIHandler) is responsible to pass which implementation of interface (ISMSService) to consume. This means we have inverted the control, the (UIHandler) is no longer responsible to decide which implementation to use, the calling code does. We have implemented the Inversion of Control principle which DI is one type of it.
The UI form code will be as below:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
ISMSService _SMSService = new MockSMSService(); // dependency
UIHandler _UIHandler = new UIHandler(_SMSService);
_UIHandler.SendConfirmationMsg("96279544480");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
Rather than contrast DI and IoC directly, it may be helpful to start from the beginning: every non-trivial application depends on other pieces of code.
So I am writing a class, MyClass, and I need to call a method of YourService... somehow I need to acquire an instance of YourService. The simplest, most straightforward way is to instantiate it myself.
YourService service = new YourServiceImpl();
Direct instantiation is the traditional (procedural) way to acquire a dependency. But it has a number of drawbacks, including tight coupling of MyClass to YourServiceImpl, making my code difficult to change and difficult to test. MyClass doesn't care what the implementation of YourService looks like, so MyClass doesn't want to be responsible for instantiating it.
I'd prefer to invert that responsibility from MyClass to something outside MyClass. The simplest way to do that is just to move the instantiation call (new YourServiceImpl();) into some other class. I might name this other class a Locator, or a Factory, or any other name; but the point is that MyClass is no longer responsible for YourServiceImpl. I've inverted that dependency. Great.
Problem is, MyClass is still responsible for making the call to the Locator/Factory/Whatever. Since all I've done to invert the dependency is insert a middleman, now I'm coupled to the middleman (even if I'm not coupled to the concrete objects the middleman gives me).
I don't really care where my dependencies come from, so I'd prefer not to be responsible for making the call(s) to retrieve them. Inverting the dependency itself wasn't quite enough. I want to invert control of the whole process.
What I need is a totally separate piece of code that MyClass plugs into (call it a framework). Then the only responsibility I'm left with is to declare my dependency on YourService. The framework can take care of figuring out where and when and how to get an instance, and just give MyClass what it needs. And the best part is that MyClass doesn't need to know about the framework. The framework can be in control of this dependency wiring process. Now I've inverted control (on top of inverting dependencies).
There are different ways of connecting MyClass into a framework. Injection is one such mechanism whereby I simply declare a field or parameter that I expect a framework to provide, typically when it instantiates MyClass.
I think the hierarchy of relationships among all these concepts is slightly more complex than what other diagrams in this thread are showing; but the basic idea is that it is a hierarchical relationship. I think this syncs up with DIP in the wild.
But the spring documentation says they are same.
http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction
In the first line "IoC is also known as dependency injection (DI)".
IoC - Inversion of control is generic term, independent of language, it is actually not create the objects but describe in which fashion object is being created.
DI - Dependency Injection is concrete term, in which we provide dependencies of the object at run time by using different injection techniques viz. Setter Injection, Constructor Injection or by Interface Injection.
Inversion of control is a design paradigm with the goal of giving more control to the targeted components of your application, the ones getting the work done.
Dependency injection is a pattern used to create instances of objects that other objects rely on without knowing at compile time which class will be used to provide that functionality.
There are several basic techniques to implement inversion of control. These are:
Using a factory pattern
Using a service locator pattern
Using a dependency injection of any given below type:
1). A constructor injection
2). A setter injection
3). An interface injection
Inversion of Control is a generic design principle of software architecture that assists in creating reusable, modular software frameworks that are easy to maintain.
It is a design principle in which the Flow of Control is "received" from the generic-written library or reusable code.
To understand it better, lets see how we used to code in our earlier days of coding. In procedural/traditional languages, the business logic generally controls the flow of the application and "Calls" the generic or reusable code/functions. For example, in a simple Console application, my flow of control is controlled by my program's instructions, that may include the calls to some general reusable functions.
print ("Please enter your name:");
scan (&name);
print ("Please enter your DOB:");
scan (&dob);
//More print and scan statements
<Do Something Interesting>
//Call a Library function to find the age (common code)
print Age
In Contrast, with IoC, the Frameworks are the reusable code that "Calls" the business logic.
For example, in a windows based system, a framework will already be available to create UI elements like buttons, menus, windows and dialog boxes. When I write the business logic of my application, it would be framework's events that will call my business logic code (when an event is fired) and NOT the opposite.
Although, the framework's code is not aware of my business logic, it will still know how to call my code. This is achieved using events/delegates, callbacks etc. Here the Control of flow is "Inverted".
So, instead of depending the flow of control on statically bound objects, the flow depends upon the overall object graph and the relations between different objects.
Dependency Injection is a design pattern that implements IoC principle for resolving dependencies of objects.
In simpler words, when you are trying to write code, you will be creating and using different classes. One class (Class A) may use other classes (Class B and/or D). So, Class B and D are dependencies of class A.
A simple analogy will be a class Car. A car might depend on other classes like Engine, Tyres and more.
Dependency Injection suggests that instead of the Dependent classes (Class Car here) creating its dependencies (Class Engine and class Tyre), class should be injected with the concrete instance of the dependency.
Lets understand with a more practical example. Consider that you are writing your own TextEditor. Among other things, you can have a spellchecker that provides the user with a facility to check the typos in his text. A simple implementation of such a code can be:
Class TextEditor
{
//Lot of rocket science to create the Editor goes here
EnglishSpellChecker objSpellCheck;
String text;
public void TextEditor()
{
objSpellCheck = new EnglishSpellChecker();
}
public ArrayList <typos> CheckSpellings()
{
//return Typos;
}
}
At first sight, all looks rosy. The user will write some text. The developer will capture the text and call the CheckSpellings function and will find a list of Typos that he will show to the User.
Everything seems to work great until one fine day when one user starts writing French in the Editor.
To provide the support for more languages, we need to have more SpellCheckers. Probably French, German, Spanish etc.
Here, we have created a tightly-coupled code with "English"SpellChecker being tightly coupled with our TextEditor class, which means our TextEditor class is dependent on the EnglishSpellChecker or in other words EnglishSpellCheker is the dependency for TextEditor. We need to remove this dependency. Further, Our Text Editor needs a way to hold the concrete reference of any Spell Checker based on developer's discretion at run time.
So, as we saw in the introduction of DI, it suggests that the class should be injected with its dependencies. So, it should be the calling code's responsibility to inject all the dependencies to the called class/code. So we can restructure our code as
interface ISpellChecker
{
Arraylist<typos> CheckSpelling(string Text);
}
Class EnglishSpellChecker : ISpellChecker
{
public override Arraylist<typos> CheckSpelling(string Text)
{
//All Magic goes here.
}
}
Class FrenchSpellChecker : ISpellChecker
{
public override Arraylist<typos> CheckSpelling(string Text)
{
//All Magic goes here.
}
}
In our example, the TextEditor class should receive the concrete instance of ISpellChecker type.
Now, the dependency can be injected in Constructor, a Public Property or a method.
Lets try to change our class using Constructor DI. The changed TextEditor class will look something like:
Class TextEditor
{
ISpellChecker objSpellChecker;
string Text;
public void TextEditor(ISpellChecker objSC)
{
objSpellChecker = objSC;
}
public ArrayList <typos> CheckSpellings()
{
return objSpellChecker.CheckSpelling();
}
}
So that the calling code, while creating the text editor can inject the appropriate SpellChecker Type to the instance of the TextEditor.
You can read the complete article here
DI and IOC are two design pattern that mainly focusing on providing loose coupling between components, or simply a way in which we decouple the conventional dependency relationships between object so that the objects are not tight to each other.
With following examples, I am trying to explain both these concepts.
Previously we are writing code like this
Public MyClass{
DependentClass dependentObject
/*
At somewhere in our code we need to instantiate
the object with new operator inorder to use it or perform some method.
*/
dependentObject= new DependentClass();
dependentObject.someMethod();
}
With Dependency injection, the dependency injector will take care of the instantiation of objects
Public MyClass{
/* Dependency injector will instantiate object*/
DependentClass dependentObject
/*
At somewhere in our code we perform some method.
The process of instantiation will be handled by the dependency injector
*/
dependentObject.someMethod();
}
The above process of giving the control to some other (for example the container) for the instantiation and injection can be termed as Inversion of Control and the process in which the IOC container inject the dependency for us can be termed as dependency injection.
IOC is the principle where the control flow of a program is inverted: instead of the programmer controlling the flow of a program, program controls the flow by reducing the overhead to the programmer.and the process used by the program to inject dependency is termed as DI
The two concepts work together providing us with a way to write much more flexible, reusable, and encapsulated code, which make them as important concepts in designing object-oriented solutions.
Also Recommend to read.
What is dependency injection?
You can also check one of my similar answer here
Difference between Inversion of Control & Dependency Injection
IOC(Inversion Of Control): Giving control to the container to get instance of object is called Inversion of Control. It means instead of you are creating object using new operator, let the container do that for you.
DI(Dependency Injection): Passing the required parameters(properties) from XML to an object(in POJO CLASS) is called Dependency injection.
IOC indicates that an external classes managing the classes of an application,and external classes means a container manages the dependency between class of application.
basic concept of IOC is that programmer don't need to create your objects but describe how they should be created.
The main tasks performed by IoC container are:
to instantiate the application class. to configure the object. to assemble the dependencies between the objects.
DI is the process of providing the dependencies of an object at run time by using setter injection or constructor injection.
IOC - DIP - DI
Inversion of Control (IOC)
Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)
Dependency Injection (DI)
1- IOC: abstract principle describing an aspect of some software architecture designs in which the flow of control of a system is inverted in comparison to procedural programming.
2-DIP: is Object Oriented Programming(OOP) principle(D of SOLID).
3-DI: is a software design pattern that implements inversion of control and allows a program design to follow the dependency inversion principle.
IOC & DIP are two disjoint sets and DIP is the super set of DI, service locator and some other patterns
IOC (Inversion of Control) is basically design pattern concept of removing dependencies and decoupling them to making the flow non-linear , and let the container / or another entity manage the provisioning of dependencies. It actually follow Hollywood principal “Don’t call us we will call you”.
So summarizing the differences.
Inversion of control :- It’s a generic term to decouple the dependencies and delegate their provisioning , and this can be implemented in several ways (events, delegates etc).
Dependency injection :- DI is a subtype of IOC and is implemented by constructor injection, setter injection or method injection.
The following article describe this very neatly.
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/592372/Dependency-Injection-DI-vs-Inversion-of-Control-IO
I think the idea can be demonstrated clearly without getting into Object Oriented weeds, which seem to muddle the idea.
// dependency injection
function doSomething(dependency) {
// do something with your dependency
}
// in contrast to creating your dependencies yourself
function doSomething() {
dependency = getDependencySomehow()
}
// inversion of control
application = makeApp(authenticate, handleRequest, sendResponse)
application.run(getRequest())
// in contrast to direct control or a "library" style
application = makeApp()
request = application.getRequest()
if (application.authenticate(request.creds)) {
response = application.handleRequest(request)
application.sendResponse(response)
}
If you tilt your head and squint your eyes, you'll see that DI is a particular implementation of IoC with specific concerns. Instead of injecting models and behaviors into an application framework or higher-order operation, you are injecting variables into a function or object.
Let's begin with D of SOLID and look at DI and IoC from Scott Millett's book "Professional ASP.NET Design Patterns":
Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)
The DIP is all about isolating your classes from concrete
implementations and having them depend on abstract classes or
interfaces. It promotes the mantra of coding to an interface rather
than an implementation, which increases flexibility within a system by
ensuring you are not tightly coupled to one implementation.
Dependency Injection (DI) and Inversion of Control (IoC)
Closely linked to the DIP are the DI principle and the IoC principle. DI is the act of supplying a low level or dependent class via a
constructor, method, or property. Used in conjunction with DI, these
dependent classes can be inverted to interfaces or abstract classes
that will lead to loosely coupled systems that are highly testable and
easy to change.
In IoC, a system’s flow of control is inverted
compared to procedural programming. An example of this is an IoC
container, whose purpose is to inject services into client code
without having the client code specifying the concrete implementation.
The control in this instance that is being inverted is the act of the
client obtaining the service.
Millett,C (2010). Professional ASP.NET Design Patterns. Wiley Publishing. 7-8.
DIP vs DI vs IoC
[Dependency Inversion Principle(DIP)] is a part of SOLID[About] which ask you to use abstraction instead of realizations
Dependency Injection(DI) - use Aggregation instead of Composition[About] In this case external object is responsible for logic inside. Which allows you to have more dynamic and testable approach
class A {
B b
//injecting B via constructor
init(b: B) {
self.b = b
}
}
Inversion of Control(IoC) very high level definition which is more about control flow. The best example is Inversion of Control(IoC) Container or Framework[About]. For example GUI which is Framework where you don't have a control, everything which you can do is just implement Framework's interface which will be called when some action is happend in the Framework. So control is shifted from your application into the Framework being used
DIP + DI
class A {
IB ib
init(ib: IB) {
self.ib = ib
}
}
Also you can achieve it using:
[Factory Method]
[Service Locator]
[IoC-container(framework)]
More complex example
Dependency rule in multi layer/module structure
Pseudocode:
interface InterfaceInputPort {
func input()
}
interface InterfaceOutputPort {
func output()
}
class A: InterfaceOutputPort {
let inputPort = B(outputPort: self)
func output() {
print("output")
}
}
class B: InterfaceInputPort {
let outputPort: InterfaceOutputPort
init(outputPort: InterfaceOutputPort) {
self.outputPort = outputPort
}
func input() {
print("input")
}
}
//ICO , DI ,10 years back , this was they way:
public class AuditDAOImpl implements Audit{
//dependency
AuditDAO auditDAO = null;
//Control of the AuditDAO is with AuditDAOImpl because its creating the object
public AuditDAOImpl () {
this.auditDAO = new AuditDAO ();
}
}
Now with Spring 3,4 or latest its like below
public class AuditDAOImpl implements Audit{
//dependency
//Now control is shifted to Spring. Container find the object and provide it.
#Autowired
AuditDAO auditDAO = null;
}
Overall the control is inverted from old concept of coupled code to the frameworks like Spring which makes the object available. So that's IOC as far as I know and Dependency injection as you know when we inject the dependent object into another object using Constructor or setters . Inject basically means passing it as an argument. In spring we have XML & annotation based configuration where we define bean object and pass the dependent object with Constructor or setter injection style.
I found best example on Dzone.com which is really helpfull to understand the real different between IOC and DI
“IoC is when you have someone else create objects for you.” So instead of writing "new " keyword (For example, MyCode c=new MyCode())in your code, the object is created by someone else. This ‘someone else’ is normally referred to as an IoC container. It means we handover the rrsponsibility (control )to the container to get instance of object is called Inversion of Control.,
means instead of you are creating object using new operator, let the container do that for you.
DI(Dependency Injection): Way of injecting properties to an object is
called
Dependency injection.
We have three types of Dependency injection
1) Constructor Injection
2) Setter/Getter Injection
3) Interface Injection
Spring will support only Constructor Injection and Setter/Getter Injection.
Read full article IOC and Read Full article DI
1) DI is Child->obj depends on parent-obj. The verb depends is important.
2) IOC is Child->obj perform under a platform. where platform could be school, college, dance class. Here perform is an activity with different implication under any platform provider.
practical example:
`
//DI
child.getSchool();
//IOC
child.perform()// is a stub implemented by dance-school
child.flourish()// is a stub implemented by dance-school/school/
`
-AB
As for this question, I'd say the wiki has already provided detailed and easy-understanding explanations. I will just quote the most significant here.
Implementation of IoC
In object-oriented programming, there are several basic techniques to
implement inversion of control. These are:
Using a service locator pattern Using dependency injection, for
example Constructor injection Parameter injection Setter injection
Interface injection;
Using a contextualized lookup;
Using template method design pattern;
Using strategy design pattern
As for Dependency Injection
dependency injection is a technique whereby one object (or static
method) supplies the dependencies of another object. A dependency is
an object that can be used (a service). An injection is the passing of
a dependency to a dependent object (a client) that would use it.
IoC concept was initially heard during the procedural programming era. Therefore from a historical context IoC talked about inversion of the ownership of control-flow i.e. who owns the responsibility to invoke the functions in the desired order - whether it's the functions themselves or should you invert it to some external entity.
However once the OOP emerged, people began to talk about IoC in OOP context where applications are concerned with object creation and their relationships as well, apart from the control-flow. Such applications wanted to invert the ownership of object-creation (rather than control-flow) and required a container which is responsible for object creation, object life-cycle & injecting dependencies of the application objects thereby eliminating application objects from creating other concrete object.
In that sense DI is not the same as IoC, since it's not about control-flow, however it's a kind of Io*, i.e. Inversion of ownership of object-creation.
What is wrong in my way of explainning DI and IoC?

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