Overview

DependencyBundle helps you write Dependency Injected code without a Global Dependency Registry or a Dependency Injection Framework, because:

  • Global Dependency Registries are bad for all the same reasons regular globals are bad (which we’re trying to get away from with DI in the first place!).

  • Dependency Injection Frameworks aren’t bad, but they are heavy, and aren’t necessary in all situations where you want DI.

Instead, DependencyBundle is a Depedency Registry that’s designed to be injected. Using it is simple. Here’s an a Dependency Bundle with just a logger:

require 'dependency_bundle'

deps = DependencyBundle.new
# by default, DependencyBundle instances also come with:
#   .env    -> the ENV global
#   .stdin  -> the STDIN global
#   .stdout -> the STDOUT global
#   .stderr -> the STDERR global

deps.set(logger: Logger.new(deps.stdout))

But building your entire codebase around it is even better.

Using DependencyBundle

Let’s say you’ve got a report that gets run every morning. It:

  1. makes some HTTP API requests

  2. does some math on the results of those requests

  3. caches the result on a Memcache instance

  4. emails the attendees of a standing morning meeting

Assuming you don’t need any dependencies for the computation itself, you’ve got these dependencies:

  • HTTP Client

  • Memcache Client

  • Mailer

  • Logger (not mentioned explicitly, but you always need one)

So your bundle would look something like this:

require 'dependency_bundle'

deps = DependencyBundle.new

deps.set(logger: Logger.new(self.stdout))      # default DependencyBundle stdout
deps.set(
  mailer:          Mailer(deps: self)),         # Mailer needs a logger, so we inject deps into it
  http_client:     HTTPClient.new(deps: self)), # the HTTPClient also needs a logger
  memcache_client: MemcacheClient.new(          # MemcacheClient needs:
    host: "cache.example.com",                  #   a host to connect to
    deps: self                                  #   a logger, which we again get from our DependencyBundle
  )
)
end

and your report class might look like this:

class MorningMeetingReport
  def initialize(deps:, date: Date.today.prev_day)
    # One of DependencyBundle's best features is dependency verification.
    # It allows us to:
    #   * Discover during testing if we have unsatisfied class dependencies
    #   * Document the dependencies of our classes
    deps.verify_dependencies!(:logger, :http_client, :memcache_client, :mailer)

    @deps = deps
    @date = date
  end

  def generate
    # collect data with @deps.http_client
  end

  def store
    # cache report with @deps.memcache_client
  end

  def notify
    # email attendees with @deps.mailer
  end
end

If you design entire programs this way,

  • adding new dependencies is easy

  • testing your code’s response to failures is simple

Testing with DependencyBundle

Testing your code with Dependency Bundles is also easy! Build DependencyBundle instances in your setup steps, and instantiate your test subjects with them. As an example, if we use the above code and RSpec doubles, it’ll look something like this:

RSpec.describe MorningMeetingReport do
  let(:deps) do
    DependencyBundle.new(
      logger: Logger.new(StringIO.new),
      mailer: instance_double("Mailer"),
      http_client: instance_double('HTTPClient'),
      memcache_client: instance_double('MemcacheClient')
    )
  end

  context 'happy path' do
    before do
      allow(deps.http_client).to receive(:get).with(url).and_return(fixture)
      allow(deps.memcache_client).to receive(:set).with(key, value).and_return(true)
      allow(deps.mailer).to receive(:send_mail).and_return(true)
    end

    # ...
  end

  # ...
end

Installation

Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:

gem 'dependency_bundle'

And then execute:

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>gem install dependency_bundle

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/yarmiganosca/dependency_bundle

Important
Code of Conduct

This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Convenant code of conduct.

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install.

Testing

To run all the tests, run

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>bundle exec rspec

Pull Requests

Pull requests should be well-scoped and include tests appropriate to the changes.

When submitting a pull request that changes user-facing behavior, add release note lines to the commit message body like this. You can preview your release lines by running

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>bundle exec rake changelog:preview

Releases

Releasing a new version is a 2-step process.

First, run

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>bundle exec rake changelog:compile

This will add a new release section before the other release sections. It will contain all the release notes in the commit messages since the last release, and will be prepopulated with the minimum possible version given those changes. Proof-read it and reorder the notes if you think doing so would be necessary or clearer. Feel free to increase the version if necessary (to force a major release, for example).

Once you’re satisfied, run

<span style="pointer-events:none;user-select:none;">$ </span>bundle exec rake changelog:release

This will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.