Dependency injection

• Basics
• Contextual injection
• Replacing registered dependencies
• Services
  • Core
  • Web
  • CLI
• Container aware

Mako comes with an easy to use dependency injection container. Using dependency injection makes your application more maintainable and decoupled. Another benefit of using the dependency injection pattern is that it greatly increases the testability of the code, thus making it less prone to bugs.

All controllers, migrations and commands are instantiated using the container making it easy to inject dependencies.

Basics

The register method allows you to register a dependency in the container.

$container->register(FooInterface::class, Foo::class);

It is possible to register a key along with the type hint. This will save a few keystrokes when resolving classes and also make it possible to access dependencies using overloading in container aware classes.

$container->register([FooInterface::class, 'foo'], Foo::class);

Additionally, the container allows you to register your dependencies using a closure.

$container->register([BarInterface::class, 'bar'], fn ($container) => new Bar('parameter value'));

The registerSingleton method works just like the register method except that it makes sure that the same instance is returned every time the class is resolved through the container.

$container->registerSingleton([BarInterface::class, 'bar'], fn ($container) => new Bar('parameter value'));

The registerInstance method is similar to the registerSingleton method. The only difference is that it allows you to register an existing instance in the container.

$container->registerInstance([BarInterface::class, 'bar'], new Bar('parameter value'));

The has method allows you to check for the presence of an item in the container.

// Check using the type hint

if($container->has(BarInterface::class))
{
	// Do something
}

// Or the optional key

if($container->has('bar'))
{
	// Do something
}

The get method lets you resolve a dependency through the container.

// Resolve the class using the type hint

$foo = $container->get(FooInterface::class);

// Or the optional key

$foo = $container->get('foo');

The class does not have to be registered in the container to be resolvable.

<?php

class Depends
{
	public function __construct(
		protected FooInterface $foo, 
		protected BarInterface $bar
	)
	{}
}

We can now resolve the Depends class using the container. Both its dependencies will automatically be injected.

$depends = $container->get(Depends::class);

The getFresh method works just like the get method except that it returns a fresh instance even if the class that you are resolving is registered as a singleton.

$foo = $container->getFresh('bar');

The getFresh method might not work as expected for classes registered using the registerInstance method.

The call method allows you to execute a callable and automatically inject its dependencies.

$returnValue = $container->call(function (\app\lib\FooInterface $foo, \app\lib\BarInterface $bar)
{
	// $foo and $bar will automatically be injected into the callable
});

Contextual injection

Sometimes you'll need to inject different implementations of the same interface to different classes. This can easily be achieved with contextual dependency injection.

$container->registerContextualDependency(ClassA::class, FooBarInterface::class, FooBarImplementationA::class);
$container->registerContextualDependency(ClassB::class, FooBarInterface::class, FooBarImplementationB::class);

ClassA will now get the FooBarImplementationA implementation of the FooBarInterface while ClassB will get the FooBarImplementationB implementation.

You can also register contextual dependencies for class methods.

$container->registerContextualDependency([ClassA::class, 'methodA'], FooBarInterface::class, FooBarImplementationA::class);
$container->registerContextualDependency([ClassA::class, 'methodB'], FooBarInterface::class, FooBarImplementationB::class);

Replacing registered dependencies

The container also allows you to replaces previously registered dependencies.

The replace method allows you to replace a previously registered dependency in the container.

$container->replace(FooInterface::class, OtherFoo::class);

The replaceSingleton method allows you to replace a previously registered singleton dependency in the container.

$container->replaceSingleton([BarInterface::class, 'bar'], fn ($container) => new OtherBar('parameter value'));

The replaceInstance method allows you to replace a previously registered instance dependency in the container.

$container->replaceInstance([BarInterface::class, 'bar'], new OtherBar('parameter value'));

You can also replace instances that already have been injected by the container thanks to the onReplace event.

In the following example we'll register an instance of the Dependency class along with a factory closure for the Dependent class. Inside the factory method we'll tell the container to replace the previous instance of the Dependency class using the Dependent::replaceDependency() method in the event that it gets replaced.

$container->registerInstance(Dependency::class, new Dependency('original'));

$container->register(Dependent::class, function ($container)
{
	$dependent = new Dependent($container->get(Dependency::class));

	$container->onReplace(Dependency::class, [$dependent, 'replaceDependency']);

	return $dependent;
});

$dependent = $container->get(Dependent::class);

var_dump($dependent->dependency->value); // string(8) "original"

$container->replaceInstance(Dependency::class, new Dependency('replacement'));

var_dump($dependent->dependency->value); // string(11) "replacement"

In the example above we assumed that the Dependent class had a replaceDependency method. This might not always be the case so we can also use a closure to achieve the same result.

$container->onReplace(Dependency::class, (function ($dependency)
{
	$this->dependency = $dependency;
})->bindTo($dependent, Dependent::class));

Services

Services are an easy and clean way of registering dependencies in the container.

Mako includes a number of services for your convenience and you'll find a complete list in the app/config/application.php configuration file. You can add your own or remove the ones that you don't need in your application.

Services are split up in 3 groups. Core services are loaded in both web and cli environments while web and cli services are only loaded for web requests and command line operations respectively.

Core

Web

Cli

Note that some of the services depend on each other (e.g. the session needs the database manager if you choose to store your sessions in the database).

Container aware

You can also make a class that is instantiated by the container "container aware" by using the ContainerAwareTrait. This means that you can use the container as a service locator if you prefer that.

Note that controllers, migrations and tasks are container aware by default.

The container is always available through the $container property.

$this->container->get('view');

The ContainerAwareTrait also implements the magic __get() method. This allows you to resolve classes through the container using overloading.

$this->view; // Instance of mako\view\ViewFactory

Note that resolving classes that are not registered as singletons in the container using overloading will result in a new instance every time. You should assign the resolved instance to a local variable if you need to perform multiple method calls on the object.