Using dependency injection in a library

Question

I'm writing a java library that will be used by an existing application. I'm using dependency injection so testing is easier, and I'm familiar with Spring so I was planning to use it to manage the dependency injection while testing. The applications that will eventually use the library are not Spring-based, however, nor does it use any IoC/DI container of any sort currently. My question is, what's the best approach for injecting dependencies if Spring or Guice are not used? Should I consider something like a factory method to instantiate and wire the objects? The dependencies are all inside the library, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the application instantiate each dependency to create the main object.

Answer 1

what's the best approach for injecting dependencies if Spring or Guice are not used?

If your library was written in a DI-friendly idiom. It should be fairly easy to use as a straitforward java API. Think of your past experience with spring. There are several libraries out there that fit perfectly with the spring model but were written before spring time. I don't see nothing bad with a new followed by a couple of setXX followed by a call to the real work method. Just be extra careful, since, among other things, your client can forget to call thouse init methods that spring reliably calls.

Should I consider something like a factory method to instantiate and wire the objects? The dependencies are all inside the library, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the application instantiate each dependency to create the main object.

Let the client application decide that. You are providing a library. Let the API client wire its own objects. Provide an example. Later, that same example can be used to make the factory method on the client's domain. Maybe the client application has it's own way to configure itself, and it would be desirable if the API your library provides to be flexible enough to take advantage of that.

Or maybe you can include guice. The licence is Apache. Just like a whole piece of Java itself.