Controlling lifetime of objects created by factory generated by ToFactory() - ninject

I am using the following Ninject related nuget packages in an MVC 5 WebAPI application:
Ninject.MVC5
Ninject.Extensions.Factory
ninject.extensions.conventions
I have a simple repository and a corresponding factory class like so:
public interface ITaskRunner
{
void Run();
}
public interface IRepository<T> where T: class
{
T[] GetAll();
}
public interface IRepositoryFactory<T> where T: class
{
IRepository<T> CreateRepository();
}
I have setup the Ninject bindings using ToFactory() from Ninject.Extensions.Factory like so:
kernel.Bind<ITaskRunner>().To<TaskRunner>().InSingletonScope();
kernel.Bind(typeof(IRepository<>)).To(typeof(Repository<>)).InRequestScope();
kernel.Bind<IRepositoryFactory<Contact>>().ToFactory();
I am using the factory in the following class:
public class TaskRunner : ITaskRunner
{
//MyTask is a simple POCO class(not shown for brevity)
IRepositoryFactory<MyTask> repoFactory = null;
IRepository<MyTask> repo = null;
public TaskRunner(IRepositoryFactory<MyTask> repoFactory)
{
this.repoFactory = repoFactory;
repo = repoFactory.CreateRepository();
}
//implementation elided
}
I am noticing that the call to repoFactory.CreateRepository() always returns the same instance of the factory (dynamic proxy) that Ninject generates.
Question : Is there a way to change/control this behavior and set a "lifetime" such as Transient, PerThread etc. for the instance that "CreateRepository" returns?
In this particular case, tasks might be processed asynchronously on multiple threads and the repository is not thread safe and hence singleton behavior for the instance returned from "CreateRepository" is not desirable.

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve, but results you are seeing are quite expected because your TaskRunner is bound as Singleton (so constructed once), and you retrieve your repository in the TaskRunner constructor, which again happens once, and so repo is always the same instance. Note this happens regardless of how you bind IRepository and IRepositoryFactory, see Captive Dependency post by Mark Seemann for details http://blog.ploeh.dk/2014/06/02/captive-dependency/.
In fact, if you need to create repo in the constructor, you could just inject IRepository itself. The power of the Factory extension lies in the fact that it allows to resolve instances at runtime, not construction time. For example, if your TaskRunner has Run() method, you can create repository in it, so each task to run can have its own instance.

Related

When to instantiate the repository and which is the lifespan of it?

In DDD, is the application layer who uses the repository to get the data from database, call the methods of the domain and then call the repository to persists the data. Something like that:
public void MyApplicationService()
{
Order myOrder = _orderRepository.Get(1);
myOrder.Update(data);
_orderRepository.Commit();
}
In this example the repository is a class variable that it is instantiate in the constructor of the service, so its life is the life of the class.
But I am wondering if it wouldn't be better to instantiate a repository for each action that I want to do, to have a shorter life, because if not, if I use the class for many actions, the repository will have many entities that perhaps it will not need more.
So I was thinking in a solution like this:
public void MyApplicationService()
{
OrderRepository myOrderRepository = new OrderRepository(_options);
Order myOrder = myOrderRepository.GetOrder(1);
myOrder.Update(data);
myOrderRepository.Commit();
myOrderRepository.Dispose();
}
So a new instance each time I need to do the action.
So in sumary, I would like to know about the differents solutions and the advantages and disadvanges to decide the lifespan of the repository.
Thanks.
The recommended lifespan of the repository is one business transaction.
Your second patch of code is correct in that aspect, however it has one drawback: you have created a strong dependency between the ApplicationService and OrderRepository classes. With your code, you are not able to isolate both class in order to unit test them separately. Also, you need to update the ApplicationService class whenever you change the constructor of the OrderRepository. If OrderRepository requires parameters to construct, then you have to construct them (which implies to reference their type and base types), despite this being an implementation detail of OrderRepository (needed for data persistence store access) and not needed for your application service layer.
For these reasons, most of modern program development rely on a pattern called Dependency Injection (DI). With DI, you specify that your ApplicationService class depends on an instance of the OrderRepository class, or better, an interface IOrderRepository whom the OrderRepository class implements. The dependency is declared by adding a parameter in the ApplicationService constructor:
public interface IOrderRepository : IDisposable
{
Order GetOrder(int id);
void Commit();
}
public class ApplicationService
{
private readonly OrderRepository orderRepository;
public ApplicationService(IOrderRepository orderRepository)
{
this.orderRepository = orderRepository ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(orderRepository));
}
public void Update(int id, string data)
{
Order myOrder = orderRepository.Get(id);
myOrder.Update(data);
orderRepository.Commit();
}
}
Now the DI library is responsible to construct OrderRepository and inject the instance in the ApplicationService class. If OrderRepository has its own dependencies, the library will resolve them first and construct the whole object graph so you don't have to do that yourself. You simply need to tell your DI library what specific implementation you want for each referenced interface. For example in C#:
public IServiceCollection AddServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
return services.AddScoped<IOrderRepository,OrderRepository>();
}
When unit testing your code, you can replace the actual implementation of OrderRepository with a mock object, such as Mock<IOrderRepository> or your own MockOrderRepository implementation. The code under test is then exactly the code in production, all wiring being done by the DI framework.
Most modern DI libraries have support for object lifetime management, including transient (always resolve a new object), singleton (always reuse the same object), or scoped (each scope has a single instance). The latter is what is used to isolate objects instance per business transaction, using a singleton ScopeFactory to create scopes whenever you start a business transaction:
public class UpdateOrderUseCase : UseCase
{
private readonly IScopeFactory scopeFactory;
public UpdateOrderUseCase(IScopeFactory scopeFactory) // redacted
public void UpdateOrder(int id, string data)
{
using var scope = scopeFactory.CreateScope();
var orderRepository = scope.GetService<IOrderRepository>();
var order = orderRepository.Get(id);
order.Update(data);
orderRepository.Commit();
// disposing the scope will also dispose the object graph
}
}
When you implement a REST service, that transaction usually corresponds to one HTTP request. Modern frameworks, such as asp.net core, will automatically create scopes per HTTP request and use that to resolve your dependency graph later in the framework internals. This means you don't even have to handle the ScopeFactory yourself.

Register WCF proxy wrapper using Unity

I am trying to consume WCF in my MVC web app. I have implemented the channel factory for instantiating the proxy client.
I am stuck at a point. Here is the code highlight -
I created a proxy base class where i am creating the channel :
public abstract class ServiceProxyBase<T> : IDisposable where T : class
For creating teh proxy wrapper class i have inherited this base class as :
public class ProxyWrapper : ServiceProxyBase<IMyService>,IMyService
Here "IMyService" is the WCf contract.
Now, in the controllers i have added overloaded constructors as :
public class AccountController : Controller
{
private IMyService businessService;
public AccountController(IMyService _businessService)
{
this.businessService = _businessService;
}
}
For injecting dependency I have included unity.mvc4 package.
It works fine when I am using the following code :
container.RegisterType<IMyService, ProxyWrapper>();
This works as long as the ProxyWrapper is inheriting the IMyService interface directly. If i remove the inheritance like
public class ProxyWrapper : ServiceProxyBase<IMyService>
it gives an error while registering type.
I would like to have a way without inherting the contract in the proxy wrapper. I have spent almost a day trying to fix this. But am able to figure out a solution.
Please give your valuable suggestions on this.
If I understand correctly, your application is using a WCF service but the functionality your application needs is limited compared to the functionality that the service offers (it contains more methods than you need). According to the Interface Segregation Principle, "no client should be forced to depend on methods it does not use" and the Dependency Inversion Principle states that clients own the abstraction.
In other words, you should define your own interface that the application should use and define an implementation that wraps (i.e. composition over inheritance) the generated WCF proxy class.
For instance:
public interface IMyApplicationService
{
object GetStuff();
void PutStuff(object instance);
}
public class MyServiceApplicationProxy : IMyApplicationService
{
private readonly ProxyWrapper wcfProxy;
public MyServiceApplicationProxy(ProxyWrapper wcfProxy) {
this.wcfProxy = wcfProxy;
}
public object GetStuff() {
return this.wcfProxy.GetStuff();
}
public void PutStuff(object instance) {
this.wcfProxy.PutStuff(instance);
}
}
To make application development easier, makes your code easier to read, maintain and test.
You might even want to change the methods of your interface to better suit your application needs. Remember: the client defines the interface! So that might mean that you need to do more mapping inside the MyServiceApplicationProxy class to map adapt your core domain to the contract of the external web service. Don't let the external WCF service's contract leak into your core domain.

How to Solve Circular Dependency

Hi I have a problem with the structure of my code, it somehow goes into Circular Dependency. Here is an explanation of how my code looks like:
I have a ProjectA contains BaseProcessor and BaseProcessor has a reference to a class called Structure in ProjectB. Inside BaseProcessor, there is an instance of Structure as a variable.
In projectB there are someother classes such as Pricing, Transaction etc.
Every class in ProjectB has a base class called BaseStructure i.e. Structure, Pricing and Transaction classes all inherited from BaseStructure.
Now in Pricing and Transaction classes, I want to call a method in BaseProcessor class from BaseStructure class which causing Circular Dependency.
What I have tried is:
Using Unity, but I didn't figure out how to make it work because I try to use function like:
unityContainer.ReferenceType(IBaseProcessor, BaseProcessor)
in BaseStructure then it will need a reference of BaseProcessor which also cause Circular Dependency.
And I've also tried creating an interface of IBaseProcessor and create a function(the function I want to call) declaration in this interface. And let both BaseProcessor and BaseStructure inherit this interface. But how can I call the function in Pricing and Transaction class without create an instance of BaseProcessor?
Can anyone please tell me how to resolve this problem other than using reflection?
Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks :)
You could use the lazy resolution:
public class Pricing {
private Lazy<BaseProcessor> proc;
public Pricing(Lazy<BaseProcessor> proc) {
this.proc = proc;
}
void Foo() {
this.proc.Value.DoSomethin();
}
}
Note that you haven't to register the Lazy because Unity will resolve it by BaseProcessor registration.
Your DI container can't help solving the circular reference, since it is the dependency structure of the application that prevents objects from being created. Even without a DI container, you can't construct your object graphs without some special 'tricks'.
Do note that in most cases cyclic dependency graphs are a sign of a design flaw in your application, so you might want to consider taking a very close look at your design and see if this can't be solved by extracting logic into separate classes.
But if this is not an option, there are basically two ways of resolving this cyclic dependency graph. Either you need to fallback to property injection, or need to postpone resolving the component with a factory, Func<T>, or like #onof proposed with a Lazy<T>.
Within these two flavors, there are a lot of possible ways to do this, for instance by falling back to property injection into your application (excuse my C#):
public class BaseStructure {
public BaseStructure(IDependency d1) { ... }
// Break the dependency cycle using a property
public IBaseProcessor Processor { get; set; }
}
This moves the IBaseProcessor dependency from the constructor to a property and allows you to set it after the graph is constructed. Here's an example of an object graph that is built manually:
var structure = new Structure(new SomeDependency());
var processor = new BaseProcessor(structure);
// Set the property after the graph has been constructed.
structure.Processor = processor;
A better option is to hide the property inside your Composition Root. This makes your application design cleaner, since you can keep using constructor injection. Example:
public class BaseStructure {
// vanilla constructor injection here
public BaseStructure(IDependency d1, IBaseProcessor processor) { ... }
}
// Defined inside your Composition Root.
private class CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor : IBaseProcessor {
public IBaseProcessor WrappedProcessor { get; set; }
void IBaseProcessor.TheMethod() {
// forward the call to the real processor.
this.WrappedProcessor.TheMethod();
}
}
Now instead of injecting the BaseProcessor into your Structure, you inject the CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor, which will be further initialized after the construction of the graph:
var cyclicBreaker = new CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor();
var processor = new BaseProcessor(new Structure(new SomeDependency(), cyclicBreaker));
// Set the property after the graph has been constructed.
cyclicBreaker.WrappedProcessor = processor;
This is basically the same as before, but now the application stays oblivious from the fact that there is a cyclic dependency that needed to be broken.
Instead of using property injection, you can also use Lazy<T>, but just as with the property injection, it is best to hide this implementation detail inside your Composition Root, and don't let Lazy<T> values leak into your application, since this just adds noise to your application, which makes your code more complex and harder to test. Besides, the application shouldn't care that the dependency injection is delayed. Just as with Func<T> (and IEnumerable<T>), when injecting a Lazy<T> the dependency is defined with a particular implementation in mind and we're leaking implementation details. So it's better to do the following:
public class BaseStructure {
// vanilla constructor injection here
public BaseStructure(IDependency d1, IBaseProcessor processor) { ... }
}
// Defined inside your Composition Root.
public class CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor : IBaseProcessor {
public CyclicDependencyBreakingBaseProcessor(Lazy<IBaseProcessor> processor) {...}
void IBaseProcessor.TheMethod() {
this.processor.Value.TheMethod();
}
}
With the following wiring:
IBaseProcessor value = null;
var cyclicBreaker = new CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor(
new Lazy<IBaseProcessor>(() => value));
var processor = new BaseProcessor(new Structure(new SomeDependency(), cyclicBreaker));
// Set the value after the graph has been constructed.
value = processor;
Up until now I only showed how to build up the object graph manually. When doing this using a DI container, you usually want to let the DI container build up the complete graph for you, since this yields a more maintainable Composition Root. But this can make it a bit more tricky to break the cyclic dependencies. In most cases the trick is to register the component that you want to break with a caching lifestyle (basically anything else than transient). Per Web Request Lifestyle for instance. This allows you to get the same instance in a lazy fashion.
Using the last CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor example, we can create the following Unity registration:
container.Register<BaseProcessor>(new PerRequestLifetimeManager());
container.RegisterType<IStructure, Structure>();
container.RegisterType<IDependency, SomeDependenc>();
container.Register<IBaseProcessor>(new InjectionFactory(c =>
new CyclicDependencyBreakingProcessor(
new Lazy<IBaseProcessor>(() => c.GetInstance<BaseProcessor>())));

How to correctly dispose objects registered with Autofac

I've implemented Unit of Work/Repository pattern, as described here, but I'm also using autofac and constructor injection, so I registered UnitOfWork and DbContext (PsyProfContext) class like this:
builder.Register(context => new PsyProfContext()).InstancePerHttpRequest();
builder.RegisterType<UnitOfWork>().As<IUnitOfWork>().InstancePerHttpRequest();
And everything works great!
Except for one thing: I'm also using enterprise library logging block, and I have implemented CustomTraceListener which is using Entity Framework to write log entry into the database.
My controller looks like this (it is empty because at the moment I just tried to verify if all the things (IoC, logging, entity framework) are working):
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private readonly UnitOfWork unitOfWork;
public HomeController(IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)
{
this.unitOfWork = (UnitOfWork) unitOfWork;
}
//
// GET: /Home/
public ActionResult Index()
{
throw new HttpException();
return View();
}
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
unitOfWork.Dispose();
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
}
And in the Write method of the CustomTraceListener class, I've tried to Resolve UnitOfWork:
DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<IUnitOfWork>() as UnitOfWork;
But I get an instance which is already disposed! so I've put some breakpoints and found out that Dispose method of the controller is called before the Write method of the CustomTraceListener class, so in the end I didn't found other solution than using DbContext (PsyProfContext) directly:
public override void Write(object o)
{
using (var conext = new PsyProfContext())
{
var customLogEntry = o as CustomLogEntry;
if (customLogEntry != null)
{
var logEntry = new LogEntry
{
//a bunch of properties
};
conext.Exceptions.Add(logEntry);
conext.SaveChanges();
}
}
}
But I don't like this solution! What's the point to use UnitOfWork and Repository pattern if you access DbContext object directly. Or what's the point in using DI in project if you create a registered object manually in some cases.
So I wanted to hear your opinion, about how to deal with this kind of situations? Is my current implementation fine, or it is definitely wrong and I should think about another one.
Any help will be greatly appreciated and any ideas are welcome!
It looks like you may have a couple of problems.
First, if you're manually disposing the unit of work object in your controller, your controller should take an Owned<IUnitOfWork> in the constructor. When the request lifetime is disposed it will automatically dispose of any IDisposable components - including the controller and any resolved dependencies - unless you specify somehow that you're going to take over ownership of the lifetime. You can do that by using Owned<T>.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
Owned<IUnitOfWork> _uow;
public HomeController(Owned<IUnitOfWork> uow)
{
this._uow = uow;
}
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if(disposing)
{
this._uow.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
}
(Note a minor logic fix in the Dispose override there - you need to check the value of disposing so you don't double-dispose your unit of work.)
Alternatively, you could register your units of work as ExternallyOwned, like
builder
.RegisterType<UnitOfWork>()
.As<IUnitOfWork>()
.ExternallyOwned()
.InstancePerHttpRequest();
ExternallyOwned also tells Autofac that you'll take control of disposal. In that case, your controller will look like it does already. (Generally I like to just let Autofac do the work, though, and not take ownership if I can avoid it.)
In fact, looking at the way things are set up, you might be able to avoid the disposal problem altogether if you let Autofac do the disposal for you - the call to DependencyResolver would return the unit of work that isn't disposed yet and it'd be OK.
If that doesn't fix it... you may want to add some detail to your question. I see where your controller is using the unit of work class, but I don't see where it logs anything, nor do I see anything in the listener implementation that's using the unit of work.
(Also, as noted in the first comment on your question, in the constructor of your controller you shouldn't be casting your service from IUnitOfWork to UnitOfWork - that's breaking the abstraction that the interface was offering in the first place.)

Using Ninject to bind an interface to multiple implementations unknown at compile time

I just recently started using Ninject (v2.2.0.0) in my ASP.NET MVC 3 application. So far I'm thrilled with it, but I ran into a situation I can't seem to figure out.
What I'd like to do is bind an interface to concrete implementations and have Ninject be able to inject the concrete implementation into a constructor using a factory (that will also be registered with Ninject). The problem is that I'd like my constructor to reference the concrete type, not the interface.
Here is an example:
public class SomeInterfaceFactory<T> where T: ISomeInterface, new()
{
public T CreateInstance()
{
// Activation and initialization logic here
}
}
public interface ISomeInterface
{
}
public class SomeImplementationA : ISomeInterface
{
public string PropertyA { get; set; }
}
public class SomeImplementationB : ISomeInterface
{
public string PropertyB { get; set; }
}
public class Foo
{
public Foo(SomeImplementationA implA)
{
Console.WriteLine(implA.PropertyA);
}
}
public class Bar
{
public Bar(SomeImplementationB implB)
{
Console.WriteLine(implB.PropertyB);
}
}
Elsewhere, I'd like to bind using just the interface:
kernel.Bind<Foo>().ToSelf();
kernel.Bind<Bar>().ToSelf();
kernel.Bind(typeof(SomeInterfaceFactory<>)).ToSelf();
kernel.Bind<ISomeInterface>().To ...something that will create and use the factory
Then, when requesting an instance of Foo from Ninject, it would see that one of the constructors parameters implements a bound interface, fetch the factory, and instantiate the correct concrete type (SomeImplementationA) and pass it to Foo's constructor.
The reason behind this is that I will have many implementations of ISomeInterface and I'd prefer to avoid having to bind each one individually. Some of these implementations may not be known at compile time.
I tried using:
kernel.Bind<ISomeInterface>().ToProvider<SomeProvider>();
The provider retrieves the factory based on the requested service type then calls its CreateInstance method, returning the concrete type:
public class SomeProvider : Provider<ISomeInterface>
{
protected override ISomeInterface CreateInstance(IContext context)
{
var factory = context.Kernel.Get(typeof(SomeInterfaceFactory<>)
.MakeGenericType(context.Request.Service));
var method = factory.GetType().GetMethod("CreateInstance");
return (ISomeInterface)method.Invoke();
}
}
However, my provider was never invoked.
I'm curious if Ninject can support this situation and, if so, how I might go about solving this problem.
I hope this is enough information to explain my situation. Please let me know if I should elaborate further.
Thank you!
It seems you have misunderstood how ninject works. In case you create Foo it sees that it requires a SomeImplementationA and will try to create an instance for it. So you need to define a binding for SomeImplementationA and not for ISomeInterface.
Also most likely your implementation breaks the Dependency Inversion Princple because you rely upon concrete instances instead of abstractions.
The solution to register all similar types at once (and the prefered way to configure IoC containers) is to use configuration by conventions. See the Ninject.Extensions.Conventions extenstion.