inject 3.1.0

Python dependency injection framework

Dependency injection the python way, the good way. Not a port of Guice or Spring.

Key features

• Fast and simple to use.

• Thread-safe.

• Does not steal class constructors.

• Does not try to manage your application object graph.

• Transparently integrates into tests.

• Supports Python 2.7 and Python 3.3+.

Usage

Install from PyPI:

pip install inject

Code:

# Import the inject module.
import inject

# Create an optional configuration.
def my_config(binder):
    binder.install(my_config2)  # Add bindings from another config.
    binder.bind(Cache, RedisCache('localhost:1234'))
    binder.bind_to_provider(CurrentUser, get_current_user)

# Create a shared injector.
inject.configure(my_config)

# Use ``inject.instance`` or ``inject.attr`` to inject dependencies.
class User(object):
    cache = inject.attr(Cache)

    @classmethod
    def load(cls, id):
        return cls.cache.load('user', id)

    def __init__(self, id):
        self.id = id

    def save(self):
        self.cache.save(self)

def foo(bar):
    cache = inject.instance(Cache)
    cache.save('bar', bar)

user = User(10)
user.save()

Testing

In tests use inject.clear_and_configure(callable) to create a new injector on setup, and optionally inject.clear() to clean up on tear down:

class MyTest(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        inject.clear_and_configure(lambda binder: binder
            .bind(Cache, Mock() \
            .bind(Validator, TestValidator())

    def tearDown(self):
        inject.clear()

Thread-safety

After configuration the injector is thread-safe and can be safely reused by multiple threads.

Binding types

• Instance bindings which always return the same instance:

  redis = RedisCache(address='localhost:1234')
  def config(binder):
      binder.bind(Cache, redis)

• Constructor bindings which create a singleton on first access:

  def config(binder):
      # Creates a redis cache singleton on first injection.
      binder.bind_to_constructor(Cache, lambda: RedisCache(address='localhost:1234'))

• Provider bindings which call the provider for each injection:

  def get_my_thread_local_cache():
      pass
  
  def config(binder):
      # Executes the provider on each injection.
      binder.bind_to_provider(Cache, get_my_thread_local_cache)

• Runtime bindings which automatically create class singletons and greatly reduce required configuration. For example, below only the Config class requires binding configuration, all other classes are instantiated as singletons on injection:

  class Config(object):
      pass
  
  class Cache(object):
      config = inject.attr(Config)
  
  class Db(object):
      config = inject.attr(Config)
  
  class User(object):
      cache = inject.attr(Cache)
      db = inject.attr(Db)
  
      @classmethod
      def load(cls, user_id):
          return cls.cache.load('users', user_id) or cls.db.load('users', user_id)
  
  inject.configure(lambda binder: binder.bind(Config, load_config_file()))
  user = User.load(10)

Why no scopes?

I’ve used Guice and Spring in Java for a lot of years, and I don’t like their scopes. python-inject by default creates objects as singletons. It does not need a prototype scope as in Spring or NO_SCOPE as in Guice because python-inject does not steal your class constructors. Create instances the way you like and then inject dependencies into them.

Other scopes such as a request scope or a session scope are fragile, introduce high coupling, and are difficult to test. In python-inject write custom providers which can be thread-local, request-local, etc.

For example, a thread-local current user provider:

import inject
import threading

# Given a user class.
class User(object):
    pass

# Create a thread-local current user storage.
_LOCAL = threading.local()

def get_current_user():
    return getattr(_LOCAL, 'user', None)

def set_current_user(user):
    _LOCAL.user = user

# Bind User to a custom provider.
inject.configure(lambda binder: binder.bind_to_provider(User, get_current_user))

# Inject the current user.
@inject.param('user', User)
def foo(user):
    pass

Links

• Project: https://github.com/ivan-korobkov/python-inject

• Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/python-inject

License

Apache License 2.0