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Migrating a Guice-based project to Dagger

I have a Guice based project using vanilla Guice;
no Assisted-Inject, no AOP, no extra plugin extending Guice, etc.
To run it more easily on Android, Dagger seems like a better solution.
Every class has a dependency and a constructor with #Inject annotation.
No field or method injection is used.
The modules are quite simple (making Guice an overkill) and mostly contain bindings like the following:
class SomethingModule extends AbstractModule {
protected void configure() {
Bind(Handler.class)
.annotatedWith(Names.named("something"))
.to(SomeImplementation.class);
}
}
}
And later used like the following:
Injector inj = Guice.createInjector(new SomethingModule());
... = inj.getInstance(SampleInterface.class);
// and rest of the code.
Unfortunately,
I can not get my head around Daggers terminology.
Can you guide me with a direct translation / transformation of a Guice module to a Dagger module?
Dagger has:
Dagger's Components.
Dagger's Modules.
#Provides
#Inject
Guice has:
#Inject
#Named (or any custom annotation, if implemented correctly).
Our modules extending AbstractModule.
#Provides in the modules.
Guice Injector created from modules.
How do these relate?
Update: In addition to the nice answer by EpicPandaForce, these slides can help too.

Bind(Handler.class)
.annotatedWith(Names.named("something"))
.to(SomeImplementation.class);
Would translate to
#Module
public class SomethingModule {
#Provides
#Named("something")
//scope if needed
public Handler handler() {
return new SomeImplementation();
}
}
Which would be bound to an "Injector" (component):
#Component(modules={SomethingModule.class})
//scope if needed
public interface SomethingComponent {
#Named("something")
Handler handler();
void inject(ThatThingy thatThingy);
}
Which is an "injector" that you have to create with the APT-generated builder:
SomethingComponent somethingComponent = DaggerSomethingComponent.builder()
.somethingModule(new SomethingModule()) //can be omitted, has no params
.build();
somethingComponent.inject(thatThingy);
Where that thingy has
public class ThatThingy {
#Inject
#Named("something")
Handler handler;
}
Components typically exist per scope, so for example #ApplicationScope has one "injector" (component). Scoping can be achieved with subcomponents and component dependencies.
Important fact, a component has provision methods (which are the dependencies that are inherited to subscoped components if you use component dependencies), and void inject(X x); formatted methods. This is required for field injection per concrete type. A base class for example can only inject itself, and not its subclasses. You can however write a method called protected abstract void injectThis() which would call the .inject(this) on the subclass as well.
As I haven't really used Guice, I'm not sure if I missed out on anything. I think I forgot constructor injection, which is an issue because while Dagger does support it, it cannot be reconfigured. For reconfiguration, you have to use modules, and do the injection in the constructors yourself.
#Module(includes={ThoseModule.class, TheseModule.class})
public abstract class SomethingModule {
#Binds
abstract Whatever whatever(WhateverImpl impl);
}
#Singleton
public class WhateverImpl implements Whatever {
Those those;
These these;
#Inject
public Whatever(Those those, These these) {
this.those = those;
this.these = these;
}
}
#Component(modules={SomethingModule.class})
#Singleton
public interface SomethingComponent {
These these();
Those those();
Whatever whatever();
}

Playframework : Access named cache in Global Settings

I'm following the documentation here and trying to implement a named cache in my play (Java) project. I have a beforeStart method defined as below in my Global class:
public class Global extends GlobalSettings {
#Inject
#NamedCache("system-cache")
CacheAPI cache;
#Override
public void beforeStart(Application app) {
...
...
cache.set("test", "test"); //Throws a NullPointerException
}
However, it seems like the dependency injection does not work for the Global object. I can access the default cache using:
import play.cache.Cache;
....
public class Global extends GlobalSettings {
public void beforeStart(Application app) {
Cache.set("test", "test"); //This works
}
}
How do I access a named cache in the GlobalSettings class?

You need to use an eager singleton - this will allow you do inject whatever you want, and have it run as the app is starting up.
From the documentation:
GlobalSettings.beforeStart and GlobalSettings.onStart: Anything that needs to happen on start up should now be happening in the constructor of a dependency injected class. A class will perform its initialisation when the dependency injection framework loads it. If you need eager initialisation (for example, because you need to execute some code before the application is actually started), define an eager binding.
Based on the documentation example, you would write a module that declares your singleton:
import com.google.inject.AbstractModule;
import com.google.inject.name.Names;
public class HelloModule extends AbstractModule {
protected void configure() {
bind(MyStartupClass.class)
.toSelf()
.asEagerSingleton();
}
}
In MyStartupClass, use the constructor to define your startup behaviour.
public class MyStartupClass {
#Inject
public MyStartupClass(#NamedCache("system-cache") final CacheAPI cache) {
cache.set("test", "test");
}
}

In play2.4 there have been many changes around the GlobalSettings, you should not use it, and move to guice based configuration where you can add "hooks" when your application start and stop.
Take s look here at changes done for java.
And Take a look here on how to add a hook to your application.

Using Guice with a custom class?

I'm working with a Guice enabled framework.
When using classes that were created by the framework (or subclasses that override existing bindings), I can instantiate framework provided variables very easily. Whatever I need, it's just a matter of
#Inject
FrameworkProvidedType variable;
However, in my custom created classes, that doesn't work. All of the injected variables are null.
It's my understanding that in order to use injection, my class has to have a binding.
If I'm subclassing an existing framework class, I can override the binding in my module class. That's pretty straightforward.
But I have a new class and I don't know how to bind it to the underlying framework.
public Class myCustomClass {
private String iNeedthis;
private Context thisToo;
#Inject
FrameWorkThing magic;
public myCustomClass(String iNeedThis, Context thisToo){
this.iNeedThis = iNeedThis;
this.thisToo = thisToo;
}
public void DoMagic(){
//null pointer error because magic was not injected
magic.doMagic(this.iNeedthis);
}
}
How do I Guice-enable this new class?
I tried this in my Runtime Module
public Class<myCustomClass> bindMyCustomClass(){
return MyCustomClass.class;
}
and failed miserably.

No thanks to #bmorris591 who dismissed and downvoted the question out of the gate, I found an answer.
#Inject-ing a field into a class means that the class instance needs to be created by Guice.
Step 1 is creating a factory for the class. This may not be necessary, but it worked for me.
public interface MyCustomClassFactory {
public MyCustomClass create(String iNeedThis, Context thisToo);
}
Step 2 is installing the factory into Guice
#Override
public void configure(Binder binder) {
super.configure(binder);
binder.install(new FactoryModuleBuilder().build(MyCustomClass.class));
}
In my particular case - the framework I'm working with provides a Module class that is an implementation of com.google.inject.Module.
Within that class is a "configure(Binder binder)" function that is called on startup.
Step 3 is actually annotating the constructor
#Inject
public myCustomClass(String iNeedThis, Context thisToo){
this.iNeedThis = iNeedThis;
this.thisToo = thisToo;
}
Useful and related web page that put me on the right track:
http://beust.com/weblog/2012/08/21/advanced-dependency-injection-with-guice/
This talks about assisted injection, but it gave enough information and a simple enough to understand example that taking the next step was pretty easy.

Guice scenario where multiple injector references appear unavoidable

I have a use case where it appears that referencing a Guice injector from multiple locations is the only solution—though this is generally discouraged.
My application is built on top of Talend, an open source ETL platform. Most of my actual application is in Java classes that are called by Talend components. These components include Java snippets that I write and that, in turn, instantiate/invoke my classes.
Now I intend to use Guice throughout my Java classes but there is absolutely no way for me to inject dependencies into the Talend components (so that they would be available to the Java snippets). Instead, I need to actually create these dependencies. I’d like to at least have Guice control the instantiation, which means that instead of using new, it appears that the only way I can instantiate my classes (the ones with #Inject constructors) is to call injector.getInstance. This, in turn, implies that I need to keep the injector around, presumably using an old-fashioned factory that creates it in the first place and makes it available as a singleton.
I just can’t see any other way to handle this but perhaps I’m missing something.

Consider static injection. This will still hide persistent references to your injector across your app, but it will save you from having to pepper your code with injector.getInstance(...) calls. In any case you can inject Injector if you really need to.
class TalendDependencyModule extends AbstractModule {
#Override public void configure() {
requestStaticInjection(ExtractorDependencies.class);
requestStaticInjection(ProcessorDependencies.class);
}
}
public class ExtractorDependencies {
#Inject private static Provider<ParserService> parserServiceProvider;
#Inject private static Provider<SomethingElse> somethingElseProvider;
private ExtractorDependencies() { }
static ParserService getParserService() {
return parserServiceProvider.get();
}
/* ... */
}

I don't know how many Talend objects you have but you might want to consider using providers. For instance suppose you have your own class that you want Guice to manage creation of:
public interface INotTalendControlled {}
public class NotTalendControlled implements INotTalendControlled {}
This will be added to a Talend object whose dependencies cannot be injected via Guice (although I assume there is some manual process for doing so either constructor or setter):
public class TalendControlled {
private INotTalendControlled notTalendControlled;
private TalendControlled(INotTalendControlled notTalendControlled) {
this.notTalendControlled = notTalendControlled;
}
public INotTalendControlled getValue() {
return notTalendControlled;
}
}
If you want Guice to manage these lifecycles and the lifecycle of Talend controlled objects you can use a provider like so:
public static class TestModule extends AbstractModule {
#Override
protected void configure() {
bind(INotTalendControlled.class).to(NotTalendControlled.class);
}
#Provides
public TalendControlled provideInjectsToTalendObject(INotTalendControlled notTalendControlled) {
return new TalendControlled(notTalendControlled);
}
}
The #Provides method will hide of the use of new for all objects as you can now directly inject TalendControlled objects (#Inject TalenControlled talendControlled) and an explicit injector is not needed to construct their dependencies.

Guice - How to get an instance when all you know is the interface

In all of the Guice examples I have found, getting an instance involves calling Injector.getInstance() with the concrete class as a parameter. Is there a way to get an instance from Guice using only the interface?
public interface Interface {}
public class Concrete implements Interface {}
Interface instance = injector.getInstance(Interface.class);
Thanks

Actually that's exactly what Guice is made for.
In order to make getInstance() work with an interface you'll need to first bind an implementation of that interface in your module.
So you'll need a class that looks something like this:
public class MyGuiceModule extends AbstractModule {
#Override
protected void configure() {
bind(Interface.class).to(Concrete.class);
}
}
Then when you create your injector you just need to pass an instance of your module in:
Injector injector = Guice.createInjector(new MyGuiceModule());
Now your call to injector.getInstance(Interface.class) should return a new instance of Concrete using the default constructor.
Of course there are many many more ways you can do bindings but this is probably the most straight forward.

It works for interface as well:
bind( Interface.class ).to( Concrete.class );

Without using a Module, you can also specify the implementation class to be used by default, directly in the interface declaration:
#ImplementedBy(Concrete.class)
public interface Interface {}
This doesn't necessarily fit every situation but I found this comes in handy most of the times.
Additionnally, when using #ImplementedBy annotation, you can still override the implementation class by binding another concrete class in a Module. That can also be useful.