First draft - Resolves #280

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title: Dependency Injection
---
# Dependency Injection {#dependency_injection_title}
Dependency Injection is a basic concept that solves a complex problem. As a software design pattern it is being adopted in
some way or another by all major PHP projects.

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## Basic Concept {#basic_concept_title}
From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_injection):
> Dependency injection is a software design pattern that allows the removal of hard-coded dependencies and makes it
> possible to change them, whether at run-time or compile-time.
This quote makes the concept sound much more complicated than it actually is. Dependency Injection is providing a component
with it's dependencies either through constructor injection, method calls or the setting of properties. It is that simple.
We can demonstrate the concept with a simple, yet naive, example.
{% highlight php %}
<?php
namespace Database;
class Database
{
protected $adapter;
public function __construct()
{
$this->adapter = new MySqlAdapter;
}
}
class MysqlAdapter {}
{% endhighlight %}
Here we have a `Database` class that requires an adapter to speak to the database. We instantiate the
adapter in the constructor and create a hard dependency. This code can be refactored to use Dependency Injection
and therefore loosen the dependency.
{% highlight php %}
<?php
namespace Database;
class Database
{
protected $adapter;
public function __construct(MySqlAdapter $adapter)
{
$this->adapter = $adapter;
}
}
class MysqlAdapter {}
{% endhighlight %}
Now we are giving the `Database` class it's dependency rather than it creating it itself. We could even create a method
that would accept an argument of the dependency and set it that way, or if the `$adapter` property was `public` we could
set it directly.

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## Complex Problem {#complex_problem_title}
If you have ever read about Dependency Injection then you have probably seen the terms *"Inversion of Control"* or *"Dependency Inversion Principle"*.
These are the complex problems that Dependency Injection solves, or to be more precise, elegantly solves.
For years, PHP frameworks have been achieving Inversion of Control, however, the question became, which part of control
are you inverting, and where to? For example, MVC frameworks would generally provide a super object or base controller that other
controllers must extend to gain access to it's dependencies. This **is** Inversion of Control, however, instead of loosening
dependencies, this method simply moved them.
Dependency Injection allows us to more elegantly solve this problem by only injecting the dependencies we need, when we need them,
without the need for any hard coded dependencies at all.
Dependency Inversion Principle is the "D" in the S.O.L.I.D set of object oriented design principles that states one should
*"Depend on Abstractions. Do not depend on concretions."*. Put simply, this means our dependencies should be interfaces/contracts or abstract
classes rather than concrete implementations. We can easily refactor the above example to follow this principle.
{% highlight php %}
<?php
namespace Database;
class Database
{
protected $adapter;
public function __construct(AdapterInterface $adapter)
{
$this->adapter = $adapter;
}
}
interface AdapterInterface {}
class MysqlAdapter implements AdapterInterface {}
{% endhighlight %}
There are several benefits to the Database class now depending on an interface rather than a concretion.
Consider that you are working in a team and the adapter is being worked on by a colleague. In our first example, we would have
to wait for said colleague to finish the adapter before we could properly mock it for our unit tests. Now that the dependency
is an interface/contract we can happily mock that interface knowing that our colleague will build the adapter based on that contract.
An even bigger benefit to this method is that our code is now much more scalable. If a year down the line we decide that we
want to migrate to a different type of database, we can write an adapter that implements the original interface and inject that instead,
no more refactoring would be required as we can ensure that the adapter follows the contract set by the interface.

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## Containers {#containers_title}
The first thing you should understand about Dependency Injection Containers is that they are not the same thing as Dependency
Injection. A container is a convenience utility that helps us implement Dependency Injection, however, they can be and often
are misused to implement an anti pattern, Service Location. Using a container as a Service Locator within your classes arguably
creates a harder dependency on the container than the dependency you are replacing. It also makes your code much less transparent
and ultimately harder to test.
Most modern frameworks have their own Dependency Injection Container that allows you to wire your dependencies together through configuration.
What this means in practice is that you can write application code that is as clean and de-coupled as the framework it is built on.

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## Further Reading {#further_reading_title}
- [Learning about Dependency Injection and PHP](http://ralphschindler.com/2011/05/18/learning-about-dependency-injection-and-php)
- [What is Dependency Injection?](http://fabien.potencier.org/article/11/what-is-dependency-injection)
- [Dependency Injection: An analogy](http://mwop.net/blog/260-Dependency-Injection-An-analogy.html)
- [Dependency Injection: Huh?](http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/dependency-injection-huh/)
- [Dependency Injection as a tool for testing](http://www.happyaccidents.me/dependency-injection-as-a-tool-for-testing/)