We Keep Coding

How to provide components from a library, for consumption by multiple DI frameworks

My team owns a library that provides components that must be referencable by code that consumes the library. Some of our consumers use Spring to instantiate their apps; others use Guice. We'd like some feedback on best-practices on how to provide these components. Two options that present themselves are:
Have our library provide a Spring Configuration that consumers can #Import, and a Guice Module that they can install.
Have our library provide a ComponentProvider singleton, which provides methods to fetch the relevant components the library provides.
Quick sketches of what these would look like:
Present in both approaches
// In their code
#AllArgsConstructor(onConstructor = #__(#Inject))
public class ConsumingClass {
private final FooDependency foo;
...
}
First approach
// In our code
#Configuration
public class LibraryConfiguration {
#Bean public FooDependency foo() {...}
...
}
---
public class LibraryModule extends AbstractModule {
#Provides FooDependency foo() {...}
...
}
========================
========================
// In their code
#Configuration
#Import(LibraryConfiguration.java)
public class ConsumerConfiguration {
// Whatever initiation logic they want - but, crucially, does
// *not* need to define a FooDependency
...
}
---
// *OR*
public class ConsumerModule extends AbstractModule {
#Override
public void configure() {
// Or, simply specify LibraryModule when creating the injector
install(new LibraryModule());
...
// As above, no requirement to define a FooDependency
}
}
Second approach
// In our code
public class LibraryProvider {
public static final INSTANCE = buildInstance();
private static LibraryProvider buildInstance() {...}
private static LibraryProvider getInstance() {return INSTANCE;}
}
========================
========================
// In their code
#Configuration
public class ConsumerConfiguration {
#Bean public FooDependency foo() {
return LibraryProvider.getInstance().getFoo();
}
...
}
// or equivalent for Guice
Is there an accepted Best Practice for this situation? If not, what are some pros and cons of each, or of another option I haven't yet thought of? The first approach has the advantage that consumers don't need to write any code to initialize dependencies, and that DI frameworks can override dependencies (e.g. with mocked dependencies for testing); whereas the second approach has the advantage of being DI-framework agnostic (if a new consumer wanted to use Dagger to instantiate their app, for instance, we wouldn't need to change the library at all)

I think the first option is better. If your library has inter-dependencies between beans then the code of #Configuration in case of spring in the second approach) will be:
Fragile (what if application doesn't know that a certain bean should be created)
Duplicated - this code will appear in each and every consumer's module
When the new version of your library gets released and a consumer wants to upgrade- there might be changes in consumer's configuration ( the lib might expose a new bean, deprecate or even remove some old stuff, etc.)
One small suggestion:
You can use Spring factories and then you don't even need to make an #Import in case of spring boot. just add a maven dependency and it will load the configuration automatically.
Now, make sure that you work correctly with dependencies in case of that approach.
Since you code will include both spring and Juice dependent code, you'll add dependencies on both for your maven/gradle module of the library. This means, that consumer that uses, say, guice, will get all the spring stuff because of your library. There are many ways to overcome this issue depending on the build system of your choice, just want wanted to bring it up

When you mock a class in mockito framework, do you stand up actual mock class manually?

I am fairly new to mockito framework. I've been reading upon multiple tutorials in regards to it. One of them I was following is this: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/mockito/mockito_first_application.htm
There is a statement creating a mock of Stock Service.
In this example, we've created a mock of Stock Service to get the dummy price of some stocks
My question is Stock Service is a real service class or mock service class you have to manually stand up for mimicking the real service class. I am a bit confused. Having basic understanding of junit framework. What I had practiced before was if there is a service class Foo then I used actual class that provides all the exposed methods.
public class Foo {
public Foo() { } // construtor
public String returnAddress(String userId) {
// ...
return dataAccesobj.getAddress(userId);
}
}
Calling foo.returnAddress(..) in unit test if I remember right.
The reason I am asking this question is while I was working with mockitoto create a test method for a class, I ran into a unique(?) challenge.
I started with a real service class which depends on its super class constructor to return its instance. The challenge I ran into was this super class constructor initiates DB connection and loading/parsing properties files which I do not need for my test. I was thinking about how to prevent DB connection and loading/reading prop files....
I thought I read from one of mockito tutorials you can isolate testing without having such services. I tried with #Mock and #Spy (not fully understanding well still what they are for..) but it didn't make a difference for output (maybe I misused those annotations).
So what I did was actually creating fake/mock class out of real service class (e.g. Foo) by simply copying it and renamed it as FooMock and put it in src/test/java folder in where unit test class is running from. I kept the mock class exactly same as the real service class except taking out unwanted logic such as db connection or loading/reading prop file for env specific. By doing that I was able to test one of exposed methods that read ldap directory...
I am sorry I got digressed but hope my point is clear at this point. I am not sure the way I handled this situation is right or wrong. I'd appreciate experienced engineers would clarify the way I handled the matter is acceptable in mockito way or not. If not, then plz advise me best way to handle it.

With Mockito,
a mock is an implementation of a wrapper class.
The mock object "wraps" the target of the mock
(the service in your example)
and allows you to define functionality of each method.
There are two mocked functionality options with Mockito;
call the wrapped method and don't call the wrapped method.
I don't know when it would make sense to call the wrapped method,
so I always use don't call the wrapped method.
After you create the mock,
use the Mockito.doReturn(returnvalue).when(mockObject).method(method parameters) method to mock functionality.
Edit: some more info.
I will assume that you are using junit v4.
The details of this will differ based on the the junit major release number,
but the actual work will be the same.
Use annotations to define your Mock objects (#Mock),
except in a few special cases.
This will create mocks of non-final classes,
abstract classes,
and interfaces.
Create a "before-test" method using the #Before annotation;
I traditionally name this method preTestSetup,
but the actual name does not matter.
Call MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this) as the first line of code
in the "before-test" method.
This will find the #Mock annotations and instantiate a mock for each.
Use the ReflectionTestUtils.setField method to inject the mocks into your object (assuming that you don't have setter methods,
which I traditionally don't like).
Define the mocked functionality of each method using the Mockito.doReturn(returnvalue).when(mockObject).method(method parameters) technique.
Here is some example code
(caveat:
this should be fully functional,
but I did not compile it):
public interface MyService
{
String blammy(SomeParameter parameter);
}
public class UsesMyService
{
#Autowired
private MyService myService;
public String kapow(final SomeParameter parameter)
{
return myService.blammy(parameter);
}
}
public class UnitTestUsesMyService
{
private UsesMyService classToTest;
#Mock
private MyService mockMyService;
#Mock
private SomeParameter mockSomeParameter;
#Before
public void preTestSetup()
{
MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
classToTest = new UsesMyService();
doReturn("Blam").when(mockMyService).blammy(mockSomeParameter);
ReflectionTestUtils.setField(
classToTest,
"myService",
mockMyService);
}
#Test
public void kapow_allGood_success()
{
final String actualResult;
actualResult = classToTest.kapow(mockSomeParameter);
assertNotNull(actualResult); // Not strictly necessary.
assertEquals(
"Blam",
actualResult);
}
}

Design pattern to use when you need to initialize your object?

I have a class, which has an Initialize method, which creates a bunch of tables in a database. This class looks like this:
public class MyClass
{
private bool initialized = false;
public void Initialize()
{
if(!initialized)
{
//Install Database tables
initialized = true;
}
}
public void DoSomething()
{
//Some code which depends on the database tables being created
}
public void DoSomethingElse()
{
//Some other code which depends on the database tables being created
}
}
The two methods DoSomething and DoSomethingElse need to make sure that the Initialize method has been called before proceeding because they depend on having the tables in the database. I have two choices:
Call the Initialize method in the constructor of the class - this does not seem like a good idea because constructors should now call methods, which are non-trivial and could cause an exception.
Call the Initialize method in each of the two methods - this does not seem like a great solution either especially if there are more than a handful of methods.
Is there a design pattern which could solve this in a more elegant way?

I would use a static factory method in which Initialize is invoked, and make the constructor private, to force use of the static factory method:
public class MyClass
{
private MyClass() { ... }
public static MyClass createInstance() {
MyClass instance = new MyClass();
instance.Initialize();
return instance;
}
}
Also, I would remove the initialized variable - in part because you don't need it any more - but also because it requires some means of guaranteeing visibility (e.g. synchronization, volatile or AtomicBoolean) for thread safety.
I think that Miško Hevery's blog post on (not) doing work in constructors is an interesting read.

I would separate the installation of the database from the definition of tasks that depends on it:
static factory could be used for the database installation as pointed out by #andy-turner
and the repository pattern to do work on the database
I suggest this solution because if i understand correctly, you are concerned about the high number of tasks that depends on the database.
Using the dependency injection pattern the repository can get a reference to the database, so in your bootstrapping code you can execute the database installation once and then inject the reference to the database in all the repositories that depends on it.

I would recommend using a collaborator that does the initialisation. That way MyClass can easily be tested by substituting a mock for the initialiser collaborator. For example:
public class MyClass {
public MyClass(MyClassInitialiser initialiser) {
initialiser.initialize();
}
public void DoSomething() {
//Some code which depends on the database tables being created
}
public void DoSomethingElse() {
//Some other code which depends on the database tables being created
}
}

Or an alternative solution, the idea here is that you're breaking the single responsibility principle in MyClass. There is non-trivial initialisation behaviour (installing database tables) and behaviour on those tables in the same class. So you should separate those responsibilities into two different classes and pass one in as a collaborator to the other.
public class MyClass {
DatabaseCollaborator collaborator;
public MyClass(DatabaseCollaborator collaborator) {
this.collaborator = collaborator;
}
public void DoSomething() {
//Some code which depends on the database tables being created
collaborator.someMethod();
}
public void DoSomethingElse() {
//Some other code which depends on the database tables being created
collaborator.anotherMethod();
}
}
public class DatabaseCollaborator {
DatabaseConfig config;
public DatabaseCollaborator(DatabaseConfig config) {
this.config = config;
}
public void someMethod() {
}
public void anotherMethod() {
}
}
public class DatabaseConfig {
public DatabaseConfig() {
// initialize
}
}

When I want a class whose instances must be initialized exactly once but I want to defer initialization until right before it's necessary (at which point the caller may fail to call an Initialize function, find it inconvenient to do so, or etc.), I do it similar to how you've started out with your code, but I make the initialization method private and name it something like "EnsureInitialized". It uses a flag to track and early exit if initialization has already been done, and all functions which depend on initialization already having happened just call that function as their first line (after argument-checking).
If I expect the caller to control when this instance's initialization is done, I make the method public, name it "Init", track whether it has been run with a flag, handle idempotence or max-run-once inside the Init method however is appropriate for that class, and all methods which depend on Init having already been run will call a different, private method named "AssertIsInitialized" which will throw an exception with text like "Must call init on {class name} instance before using this function".
My goal with these different patterns is to be unambiguous about each method's expectations and operation regarding initialization within the class instance lifecycle, and provide discoverability (of the design or code bugs using it) and automatic behavior (in the case of the self-initializing class in my first paragraph) wherever I think each is most appropriate to what the rest of the application is doing.

How to access the Guice injector throughout application

I've just started using Guice and after reading the docs, skimming through a few books and watching the 2009 Google I/O talk I'm trying to convert a thrift project that relies on a few global data structures. At the moment they're created when the thrift server starts and passed to the handler on each request. They're also used in every part of the code! Essentially singletons.
As I understand it's best practice to create the injector in your main method and load all you're modules once.
I'm not sure how I'm meant to use this injector somewhere else in my code. Should I wrap it in a singleton class and litter my code with
Injector injector = InjectorInstance.get();
ClassA obj = injector.getInstance(ClassA.class);
Or is there a method I don't know about
ClassA obj = Guice.getLastInjector().getInstance(ClassA.class);
I've also found a recommendation to pass around Providers but I'm not sure how that's any better than passing the actual data structures down the call stack.
If someone could explain the recommended pattern, or even better send me in the direction of a good open source project that uses guice I would be grateful!

For Guice, the idea is that you have an entire graph of dependencies, each of which keeps a reference to the things it needs across its lifetime:
class EntryPoint {
public static void main(String[] args) {
YourApp yourApp = Guice.createInjector(yourListOfModules())
.getInstance(YourApp.class);
yourApp.run();
}
}
class YourApp {
#Inject DependencyA dependencyA;
}
class DependencyA {
#Inject DependencyB dependencyB;
}
class DependencyB {
/** This is injected once, so you'll always only get the same instance. */
#Inject DependencyC dependencyC;
/** By injecting the provider, you can get multiple instances. */
#Inject Provider<DependencyD> dependencyD;
}
Guice takes care of the plumbing, so YourApp and DependencyA don't need to worry about whether DependencyB needs DependencyC or DependencyD. In this sense, you never call new: Guice takes care of creating every #Injected dependency for you, and then supplying its dependencies.
If you haven't plumbed through your dependencies (i.e. you still call new in your code), you'll no longer have access to the Injector from the manually-constructed class. In that case you may want to use getInstance or getProvider and stash it away in a static field. Guice will also help you do this with requestStaticInjection, which is not great for long-term Guice design but may help you work with legacy code or transitioning into Guice.

Can I use Inversion of Control with Android components such as Activities and Services?

To facilitate cleaner testing, I would like to use Inversion of Control when developing my Android application. It looks straightforward to do with plain Java objects, but when I want to seed my Activitys and Services with mock data, things start to look problematic as I don't have the ability to pass those component's dependencies to their constructor.
As an example, suppose I wanted to have my Activity use a real HttpUrlConnection during normal use, but for testing, I want to have it use a mock HttpUrlConnection that does not actually connect to the internet. Is there a way I could accomplish this through IoC for an Activity?
I realize there are dependency injection options such a Factories, and libraries such as Dagger that could help me out, but I was curious if there were other ways to accomplish this.

Since Constructor-Injection for Service or Activity is not possible in Android because these classes are instantiated with a parameterless constructor by the Android runtime you need some kind of factory that creates the external objects for you. To solve this I would create a Factory-Interface which can have a mock implementation like this:
public class MyService : Service {
public static IFactory myFactory = new MyFactory();
// the non-mocked version used as Default
void myLocalFunction() {
...
HttpUrlConnection connection = myFactory.createHttpUrlConnection();
...
}
}
public MyServiceTest : ... {
class MyMockedFactory : MyFactory {
HttpUrlConnection createHttpUrlConnection(){return new MockedHttpUrlConnection();}
}
public myTest() {
MyService.myFactory = new MyMockedFactory();
.... do the test ...
}
}