Spring .Net Configuration Fluently - dependency-injection

Question

I have the need to use Spring .Net in a project and am exploring configuration options. All I can find about config for Spring .Net is config file stuff. Does Spring support configuration in code? I have used Castle and Ninject, and both seem to offer this natively. I have found projects that claim to add support, but I dont want some knock off project that will die in 6 months. I have found references in blogs that seem to indicate Spring supports this but I cant find any documentation!!
Part 2 of this might be would you recommend Spring .Net over Windsor knowing it cant support fluent configuration? I know both are great IoC containers, but I have worked on projects that have massive config files for Spring configuration and I hate it.

Answer 1

No, the current version (1.3) of Spring.NET only supports XML configuration. There has been talk about supporting Code as Configuration in future versions, but this has not yet materialized.
In my opinion, Castle Windsor is far superior to Spring.NET. I can't think of a single feature of Spring.NET that Castle Windsor doesn't have. On the other hand, Castle Windsor has the following features that are not available in Spring.NET:
Code as Configuration
Convention-based configuration
More lifetimes
Custom lifetimes
Object graph decommissioning
Explicit mapping of interfaces/base classes to concrete types
Type-based resolution
Modular configuration (Installers)
Built-in support for Decorators
Typed Factories
There are probably other features I forgot about...
It appears I was a bit too quick on the trigger here, although to my defense, the Spring.NET documentation also states that there's only XML configuration in the current version.
However, it turns out that if for certain contexts, a very primitive API is available that enables you to configure a context without XML. Here's an example:
var context = new GenericApplicationContext();
context.RegisterObjectDefinition("EggYolk",
new RootObjectDefinition(typeof(EggYolk)));
context.RegisterObjectDefinition("OliveOil",
new RootObjectDefinition(typeof(OliveOil)));
context.RegisterObjectDefinition("Mayonnaise",
new RootObjectDefinition(typeof(Mayonnaise),
AutoWiringMode.AutoDetect));
Notice how this API very closely mirrors the XML configuration schema. Thus, you don't get any fluent API from the IObjectDefinitionRegistry interface, but at least there's an API which is decoupled from XML. Building a fluent API on top of this is at least theoretically possible.

Answer 2

You will find a fully working spring fluent API for spring.net on github:
https://github.com/thenapoleon/Fluent-API-for-Spring.Net
This API brings fluent configuration, and will soon support convention based configuration.

Answer 3

In answer to the first part of your question: the springsource team appears to be working on a code configuration project on github: https://github.com/SpringSource/spring-net-codeconfig. It was announced with (but not included in) the 1.3.1 (december 2010) release.
From the MovieFinder example:
[Configuration]
public class MovieFinderConfiguration
{
[Definition]
public virtual MovieLister MyMovieLister()
{
MovieLister movieLister = new MovieLister();
movieLister.MovieFinder = FileBasedMovieFinder();
return movieLister;
}
[Definition]
public virtual IMovieFinder FileBasedMovieFinder()
{
return new ColonDelimitedMovieFinder(new FileInfo("movies.txt"));
}
}

Answer 4

There is another option using the Spring.AutoRegistration. The same concept used with Unity AutoRegistration.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Spring.AutoRegistration
http://autoregistration.codeplex.com/
var context = new GenericApplicationContext();
context.Configure()
.IncludeAssembly(x => x.FullName.StartsWith("Company.ApplicationXPTO"))
.Include(x => x.ImplementsITypeName(), Then.Register().UsingSingleton()
.InjectByProperty(If.DecoratedWith<InjectAttribute>))
.ApplyAutoRegistration();

Answer 5

It is also possible to use Spring.FluentContext project.
With it, the configuration of MovieFinder would look as follows:
// Configuration
private static IApplicationContext Configure()
{
var context = new FluentApplicationContext();
context.RegisterDefault<MovieLister>()
.BindProperty(l => l.MovieFinder).ToRegisteredDefaultOf<ColonDelimitedMovieFinder>();
context.RegisterDefault<ColonDelimitedMovieFinder>()
.UseConstructor((FileInfo fileInfo) => new ColonDelimitedMovieFinder(fileInfo))
.BindConstructorArg().ToValue(new FileInfo("movies.txt"));
return context;
}
// Usage
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IApplicationContext context = Configure();
var movieLister = context.GetObject<MovieLister>();
foreach (var movie in movieLister.MoviesDirectedBy("Roberto Benigni"))
Console.WriteLine(movie.Title);
Console.ReadLine();
}
It does not require any hardcoded literal ID for objects (but allows that), it is type safe and contains documentation with samples on GitHub wiki.

Answer 6

Using the Fluent-API-for-Spring.Net, the configuration could look something like:
private void ConfigureMovieFinder()
{
FluentApplicationContext.Clear();
FluentApplicationContext.Register<ColonDelimitedMovieFinder>("ColonDelimitedMovieFinder")
.BindConstructorArgument<FileInfo>().To(new FileInfo("movies.txt"));
// By default, fluent spring will create an identifier (Type.FullName) when using Register<T>()
FluentApplicationContext.Register<MovieLister>()
.Bind(x => x.MovieFinder).To<IMovieFinder>("ColonDelimitedMovieFinder");
}