Dependency Injection Decorators

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@inject

Syntax: @inject(bindingSelector: BindingSelector, metadata?: InjectionMetadata).

@inject is a decorator to annotate class properties or constructor arguments for automatic injection by LoopBack’s IoC container.

The injected values are applied to a constructed instance, so it can only be used on non-static properties or constructor parameters of a Class.

The @inject decorator allows you to inject dependencies bound to any implementation of the Context object, such as an Application instance or a request context instance. You can bind values, class definitions, and provider functions to those contexts and then resolve the values (or the results of functions that return those values!) in other areas of your code.

src/application.ts

import {Application} from '@loopback/core';
import fs from 'fs-extra';
import path from 'path';

export class MyApp extends RestApplication {
  constructor() {
    super();
    const app = this;
    const widgetConf = JSON.parse(
      fs.readFileSync(path.resolve('widget-config.json')).toString(),
    );
    function logInfo(info: string) {
      console.log(info);
    }
    app.bind('config.widget').to(widgetConf);
    app.bind('logger.widget').to(logInfo);
  }
}

Now that we’ve bound the ‘config.widget’ key to our configuration object, and the ‘logger.widget’ key to the function logInfo(), we can inject them in our WidgetController:

import {inject} from '@loopback/core';

export class WidgetController {
  // injection for property
  @inject('logger.widget')
  private logger: Function;

  // injection for constructor parameter
  constructor(
    @inject('config.widget') protected widget: any, // This will be resolved at runtime!
  ) {}
  // etc...
}

The @inject decorator now also accepts a binding filter function so that an array of values can be injected. If the target type is not Array, an error will be thrown.

import {inject} from '@loopback/core';

class MyControllerWithValues {
  constructor(
    @inject(binding => binding.tagNames.includes('foo'))
    public values: string[],
  ) {}
}

To sort matched bindings found by the binding filter function, @inject honors bindingComparator in metadata:

import {inject} from '@loopback/core';

class MyControllerWithValues {
  constructor(
    @inject(binding => binding.tagNames.includes('foo'), {
      bindingComparator: (a, b) => {
        // Sort by value of `foo` tag
        return a.tagMap.foo.localeCompare(b.tagMap.foo);
      },
    })
    public values: string[],
  ) {}
}

Note: The @loopback/core package re-exports all public APIs of @loopback/context. For consistency, we recommend the usage of @loopback/core for imports in LoopBack modules and applications unless they depend on @loopback/context explicitly. The two statements below are equivalent:

import {inject} from '@loopback/context';
import {inject} from '@loopback/core';

A few variants of @inject are provided to declare special forms of dependencies.

@inject.getter

@inject.getter injects a getter function that returns a promise of the bound value of the key.

Syntax: @inject.getter(bindingSelector: BindingSelector).

import {inject, Getter} from '@loopback/core';
import {UserProfile} from '@loopback/authentication';
import {get} from '@loopback/rest';

export class HelloController {
  constructor(
    @inject.getter('authentication.currentUser')
    private userGetter: Getter<UserProfile>,
  ) {}

  @get('/hello')
  async greet() {
    const user = await this.userGetter();
    return `Hello, ${user.name}`;
  }
}

@inject.getter also allows the getter function to return an array of values from bindings that match a filter function.

class MyControllerWithGetter {
  @inject.getter(filterByTag('prime'))
  getter: Getter<number[]>;
}

@inject.setter

@inject.setter injects a setter function to set the bound value of the key.

Syntax: @inject.setter(bindingKey: BindingAddress, {bindingCreation?: ...}).

The setter function injected has the following signature:

export type Setter<T> = (value?: T) => void;

The binding resolution/creation is controlled by bindingCreation option. See @inject.binding for possible settings.

The following example shows the usage of @inject.setter and the injected setter function.

export class HelloController {
  constructor(
    @inject.setter('greeting') private greetingSetter: Setter<string>,
  ) {}

  @get('/hello')
  greet() {
    const defaultGreet = 'Greetings!';
    this.greetingSetter(defaultGreet); // key 'greeting' is now bound to 'Greetings!'
    return defaultGreet;
  }
}

Please note the setter function simply binds a value to the underlying binding using binding.to(value).

To set other types of value providers such as toDynamicValueor toClass, use @inject.binding instead.

@inject.binding

@inject.binding injects a binding for the given key. It can be used to bind various types of value providers to the underlying binding or configure the binding. This is an advanced form of @inject.setter, which only allows to set a constant value (using Binding.to(value) behind the scenes) to the underlying binding.

Syntax: @inject.binding(bindingKey: BindingAddress, {bindingCreation?: ...}).

export class HelloController {
  constructor(
    @inject.binding('greeting') private greetingBinding: Binding<string>,
  ) {}

  @get('/hello')
  async greet() {
    // Bind `greeting` to a factory function that reads default greeting
    // from a file or database
    this.greetingBinding.toDynamicValue(() => readDefaultGreeting());
    return this.greetingBinding.get<string>(this.greetingBinding.key);
  }
}

If the bindingKey is not specified, the current binding from the resolution session is injected.

export class HelloController {
  @inject.binding() private myBinding: Binding<string>;

  @get('/hello')
  async greet() {
    return `Hello from ${this.myBinding.key}`;
  }
}

The @inject.binding takes an optional metadata object which can contain bindingCreation to control how underlying binding is resolved or created based on the following values:

/**
 * Policy to control if a binding should be created for the context
 */
export enum BindingCreationPolicy {
  /**
   * Always create a binding with the key for the context
   */
  ALWAYS_CREATE = 'Always',
  /**
   * Never create a binding for the context. If the key is not bound in the
   * context, throw an error.
   */
  NEVER_CREATE = 'Never',
  /**
   * Create a binding if the key is not bound in the context. Otherwise, return
   * the existing binding.
   */
  CREATE_IF_NOT_BOUND = 'IfNotBound',
}

For example:

@inject.setter('binding-key', {bindingCreation: BindingCreationPolicy.NEVER_CREATES})

@inject.tag

@inject.tag injects an array of values by a pattern or regexp to match binding tags.

Syntax: @inject.tag(tag: BindingTag | RegExp).

class Store {
  constructor(@inject.tag('store:location') public locations: string[]) {}
}

const ctx = new Context();
ctx.bind('store').toClass(Store);
ctx.bind('store.locations.sf').to('San Francisco').tag('store:location');
ctx.bind('store.locations.sj').to('San Jose').tag('store:location');
const store = ctx.getSync<Store>('store');
console.log(store.locations); // ['San Francisco', 'San Jose']

@inject.view

@inject.view injects a ContextView to track a list of bound values matching a filter function.

import {inject} from '@loopback/core';
import {DataSource} from '@loopback/repository';

export class DataSourceTracker {
  constructor(
    @inject.view(filterByTag('datasource'))
    private dataSources: ContextView<DataSource[]>,
  ) {}

  async listDataSources(): Promise<DataSource[]> {
    // Use the Getter function to resolve data source instances
    return this.dataSources.values();
  }
}

In the example above, filterByTag is a helper function that creates a filter function that matches a given tag. You can define your own filter functions, such as:

export class DataSourceTracker {
  constructor(
    @inject.view(binding => binding.tagNames.includes('datasource'))
    private dataSources: ContextView<DataSource[]>,
  ) {}
}

The @inject.view decorator takes a BindingFilter function. It can only be applied to a property or method parameter of ContextView type.

@inject.context

@inject.context injects the current context.

Syntax: @inject.context().

class MyComponent {
  constructor(@inject.context() public ctx: Context) {}
}

const ctx = new Context();
ctx.bind('my-component').toClass(MyComponent);
const component = ctx.getSync<MyComponent>('my-component');
// `component.ctx` should be the same as `ctx`

NOTE: It’s recommended to use @inject with specific keys for dependency injection if possible. Use @inject.context only when the code needs to access the current context object for advanced use cases.

For more information, see the Dependency Injection section under LoopBack Core Concepts.