Java Dependency Injection design pattern allows us to remove the hard-coded
dependencies and make our application loosely coupled, extendable and
maintainable. We can implement dependency injection in java to move the
dependency resolution from compile-time to runtime.
Java Dependency Injection
Java Dependency injection seems hard to grasp with theory, so I would take a
simple example and then we will see how to use dependency injection pattern
to achieve loose coupling and extendability in the application.
Let’s say we have an application where we consume EmailService to send
emails. Normally we would implement this like below.
public class EmailService {
public void sendEmail(String message, String receiver){
//logic to send email
[Link]("Email sent to "+receiver+ "
with Message="+message);
}
}
EmailService class holds the logic to send an email message to the recipient
email address. Our application code will be like below.
public class MyApplication {
private EmailService email = new EmailService();
public void processMessages(String msg, String rec){
//do some msg validation, manipulation logic etc
[Link](msg, rec);
}
}
Our client code that will use MyApplication class to send email messages
will be like below.
public class MyLegacyTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
MyApplication app = new MyApplication();
[Link]("Hi Pankaj", "pankaj@[Link]");
}
At first look, there seems nothing wrong with the above implementation. But
above code logic has certain limitations.
MyApplication class is responsible to initialize the email service and then
use it. This leads to hard-coded dependency. If we want to switch to some
other advanced email service in the future, it will require code changes in
MyApplication class. This makes our application hard to extend and if email
service is used in multiple classes then that would be even harder.
If we want to extend our application to provide an additional messaging
feature, such as SMS or Facebook message then we would need to write
another application for that. This will involve code changes in application
classes and in client classes too.
Testing the application will be very difficult since our application is directly
creating the email service instance. There is no way we can mock these
objects in our test classes.
One can argue that we can remove the email service instance creation
from MyApplication class by having a constructor that requires email service
as an argument.
public class MyApplication {
private EmailService email = null;
public MyApplication(EmailService svc){
[Link]=svc;
}
public void processMessages(String msg, String rec){
//do some msg validation, manipulation logic etc
[Link](msg, rec);
}
}
But in this case, we are asking client applications or test classes to initializing
the email service that is not a good design decision.
Now let’s see how we can apply java dependency injection pattern to solve all
the problems with the above implementation. Dependency Injection in java
requires at least the following:
1. Service components should be designed with base class or interface. It’s
better to prefer interfaces or abstract classes that would define contract for the
services.
2. Consumer classes should be written in terms of service interface.
3. Injector classes that will initialize the services and then the consumer classes.
Java Dependency Injection – Service Components
For our case, we can have MessageService that will declare the contract for
service implementations.
public interface MessageService {
void sendMessage(String msg, String rec);
}
Now let’s say we have Email and SMS services that implement the above
interfaces.
public class EmailServiceImpl implements MessageService {
@Override
public void sendMessage(String msg, String rec) {
//logic to send email
[Link]("Email sent to "+rec+ " with
Message="+msg);
}
package [Link];
public class SMSServiceImpl implements MessageService {
@Override
public void sendMessage(String msg, String rec) {
//logic to send SMS
[Link]("SMS sent to "+rec+ " with
Message="+msg);
}
Our dependency injection java services are ready and now we can write our
consumer class.
Java Dependency Injection – Service Consumer
We are not required to have base interfaces for consumer classes but I will
have a Consumer interface declaring contract for consumer classes.
public interface Consumer {
void processMessages(String msg, String rec);
}
My consumer class implementation is like below.
public class MyDIApplication implements Consumer{
private MessageService service;
public MyDIApplication(MessageService svc){
[Link]=svc;
}
@Override
public void processMessages(String msg, String rec){
//do some msg validation, manipulation logic etc
[Link](msg, rec);
}
Notice that our application class is just using the service. It does not initialize
the service that leads to better “separation of concerns“. Also use of service
interface allows us to easily test the application by mocking the
MessageService and bind the services at runtime rather than compile time.
Now we are ready to write java dependency injector classes that will initialize
the service and also consumer classes.
Java Dependency Injection – Injectors Classes
Let’s have an interface MessageServiceInjector with method declaration
that returns the Consumer class.
public interface MessageServiceInjector {
public Consumer getConsumer();
}
Now for every service, we will have to create injector classes like below.
public class EmailServiceInjector implements
MessageServiceInjector {
@Override
public Consumer getConsumer() {
return new MyDIApplication(new EmailServiceImpl());
}
public class SMSServiceInjector implements
MessageServiceInjector {
@Override
public Consumer getConsumer() {
return new MyDIApplication(new SMSServiceImpl());
}
Now let’s see how our client applications will use the application with a simple
program.
public class MyMessageDITest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String msg = "Hi Pankaj";
String email = "pankaj@[Link]";
String phone = "4088888888";
MessageServiceInjector injector = null;
Consumer app = null;
//Send email
injector = new EmailServiceInjector();
app = [Link]();
[Link](msg, email);
//Send SMS
injector = new SMSServiceInjector();
app = [Link]();
[Link](msg, phone);
}
As you can see that our application classes are responsible only for using the
service. Service classes are created in injectors. Also if we have to further
extend our application to allow facebook messaging, we will have to write
Service classes and injector classes only.
So dependency injection implementation solved the problem with hard-coded
dependency and helped us in making our application flexible and easy to
extend. Now let’s see how easily we can test our application class by mocking
the injector and service classes.
Java Dependency Injection – JUnit Test Case with Mock
Injector and Service
public class MyDIApplicationJUnitTest {
private MessageServiceInjector injector;
@Before
public void setUp(){
//mock the injector with anonymous class
injector = new MessageServiceInjector() {
@Override
public Consumer getConsumer() {
//mock the message service
return new MyDIApplication(new
MessageService() {
@Override
public void sendMessage(String
msg, String rec) {
[Link]("Mock
Message Service implementation");
}
});
}
};
}
@Test
public void test() {
Consumer consumer = [Link]();
[Link]("Hi Pankaj",
"pankaj@[Link]");
}
@After
public void tear(){
injector = null;
}
As you can see that I am using anonymous classes to mock the injector and
service classes and I can easily test my application methods. I am using JUnit
4 for the above test class, so make sure it’s in your project build path if you
are running above test class.
We have used constructors to inject the dependencies in the application
classes, another way is to use a setter method to inject dependencies in
application classes. For setter method dependency injection, our application
class will be implemented like below.
public class MyDIApplication implements Consumer{
private MessageService service;
public MyDIApplication(){}
//setter dependency injection
public void setService(MessageService service) {
[Link] = service;
}
@Override
public void processMessages(String msg, String rec){
//do some msg validation, manipulation logic etc
[Link](msg, rec);
}
public class EmailServiceInjector implements
MessageServiceInjector {
@Override
public Consumer getConsumer() {
MyDIApplication app = new MyDIApplication();
[Link](new EmailServiceImpl());
return app;
}
}
One of the best example of setter dependency injection is Struts2 Servlet API
Aware interfaces.
Whether to use Constructor based dependency injection or setter based is a
design decision and depends on your requirements. For example, if my
application can’t work at all without the service class then I would prefer
constructor based DI or else I would go for setter method based DI to use it
only when it’s really needed.
Dependency Injection in Java is a way to achieve Inversion of control (IoC) in
our application by moving objects binding from compile time to runtime. We
can achieve IoC through Factory Pattern, Template Method Design
Pattern, Strategy Pattern and Service Locator pattern too.
Spring Dependency Injection, Google Guice and Java EE CDI frameworks
facilitate the process of dependency injection through use of Java Reflection
API and java annotations. All we need is to annotate the field, constructor or
setter method and configure them in configuration xml files or classes.
Benefits of Java Dependency Injection
Some of the benefits of using Dependency Injection in Java are:
Separation of Concerns
Boilerplate Code reduction in application classes because all work to initialize
dependencies is handled by the injector component
Configurable components makes application easily extendable
Unit testing is easy with mock objects
Disadvantages of Java Dependency Injection
Java Dependency injection has some disadvantages too:
If overused, it can lead to maintenance issues because the effect of changes
are known at runtime.
Dependency injection in java hides the service class dependencies that can
lead to runtime errors that would have been caught at compile time.
