Dependency injection (DI) is the process of passing (injecting) dependencies that a class needs, typically done via the constructor. Benefits to DI include:
- Better testability - you can mock dependencies and inject them in unit tests
- Easier to detect when a class has too many dependencies - the constructor becomes bloated with parameters
- Cleaner abstraction in your interfaces - they don't leak the dependencies they need
A common way of defining what dependencies to inject for a particular class is using a DI container. You can tell the container "When I need to use a particular interface, use this implementation of that interface". Here's an example:
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\Container;
$container = new Container();
$container->bindInstance(IUserService::class, new UserService());
// Will return the same instance that was bound above
$userService = $container->resolve(IUserService::class);A binding is a way of telling the container what instance to use when resolving an interface. There are a few different ways of registering bindings:
// Whenever you need IUserService, always use the same instance of UserService
$container->bindInstance(IUserService::class, new UserService());
// Whenever you need IUserService, run the factory to get a new instance
$container->bindFactory(IUserService::class, fn () => new UserService());
// Whenever you need IUserService, run the factory and use that instance every time after
$container->bindFactory(IUserService::class, fn () => new UserService(), true);
// Whenever you need IUserService, use auto-wiring to return a new instance of UserService
$container->bindClass(IUserService::class, UserService::class);
// Whenever you need IUserService, use auto-wiring to return the same instance of UserService
$container->bindClass(IUserService::class, UserService::class, resolveAsSingleton: true);Note: The factory in
bindFactory()must be parameterless. Also, if you attempt to resolve an interface, but the container does not have a binding or it cannot auto-wire it, aResolutionExceptionwill be thrown.
You can check if the container has a particular binding:
if ($container->hasBinding(IUserService::class)) {
// ...
}You can also remove a binding:
$container->unbind(IUserService::class);If you'd like to try resolving a binding without an exception being thrown, use tryResolve():
$userService = null;
if (!$container->tryResolve(IUserService::class, $userService)) {
$userService = new UserService();
}
// ...Auto-wiring is when you let the container use reflection to scan the constructor and attempt to automatically instantiate each parameter. Let's build off the targeted binding example.
$container->bindInstance(IUserRepository::class, new UserRepository());
$userService = $container->resolve(UserService::class);The container will scan UserService::__construct(), see the IUserRepository parameter, and check to see if it has a binding. If it doesn't, it will attempt to auto-wire an instance of it if possible.
Note: A parameter with
mixedtype cannot be auto-wired as anything other than a primitive value. Also, the container will attempt to auto-wire union types, egstring|Closure, using the left-most type first, and only on failure will the container attempt to use the next left-most type.
If you want a binding to only apply when auto-wiring a specific class, use a targeted binding. Let's say that UserService looked like this:
final class UserService implements IUserService
{
public function __construct(private IUserRepository $userRepository) {}
// ...
}You can tell the container to use a specific instance of IUserRepository when resolving UserService:
$container->for(
UserService::class,
fn ($container) => $container->bindInstance(IUserRepository::class, new UserRepository())
);Calling $container->resolve(UserService::class) will now automatically inject an instance of UserRepository.
A binder is a simple class that registers bindings to the container for a particular area of your domain. For example, you might have a binder called UserBinder to centralize all the bindings related to your user domain.
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\Binders\Binder;
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\IContainer;
final class UserBinder extends Binder
{
public function bind(IContainer $container): void
{
$container->bindInstance(IUserRepository::class, new UserRepository());
$container->bindSingleton(IUserService::class, UserService::class);
}
}If you're using the skeleton app, you can register UserBinder to your app with an application builder.
Aphiria does something unique - it automatically dispatches a binder only when one or more of its bindings are needed by your application. It does this by constructing a graph between binders and bound/resolved interfaces, allowing it to dispatch the bare minimum number of binders to handle a request, increasing performance.
If you're using the skeleton app, your binders will automatically be dispatched, and you can skip the rest of this section. Otherwise, you'll have to manually dispatch your binders. Rather than having to dispatch every binder on every request, you can use LazyBinderDispatcher to lazily dispatch them, ie only when they're actually needed. Let's build on the UserBinder from the previous example and set up our app to lazily dispatch it:
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\Binders\LazyBinderDispatcher;
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\Binders\Metadata\Caching\FileBinderMetadataCollectionCache;
use Aphiria\DependencyInjection\Container;
$container = new Container();
$metadataCache = \getenv('ENV_NAME') === 'production'
? new FileBinderMetadataCollectionCache('/tmp/binderMetadataCollectionCache.txt')
: null;
$binderDispatcher = new LazyBinderDispatcher($metadataCache);
$binderDispatcher->dispatch([new UserBinder()], $container);That's it. The first time we dispatch the binders, the binder metadata will be collected and cached for future requests. Also, whenever a binder resolves an interface bound in another binder, that other binder will be automatically dispatched, too.
Note: It's recommended that you only use caching for production environments. Otherwise, changes you make to your binders might not be reflected.