This question is a result of a post by Jeffery Palermo on how to get around branched code and dependency injection http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/constructor-over-injection-anti-pattern/
In his post, Jeffery has a class (public class OrderProcessor : IOrderProcessor) that takes 2 interfaces on the constructor. One is a validator IOrderValidator and an IOrderShipper interface. His method code branches after only using methods on the IOrderValidator interface and never uses anything on the IOrderShipper interface.
He suggests creating a factory that will call a static method to get the delegate of the interface. He is creating a new object in his refactored code which seems unnecessary.
I guess the crux of the issue is we are using IoC to build all our objects regardless if they're being used or not. If you instantiate an object with 2 interfaces and have code that could branch to not use one of them, how do you handle it?
In this example, we assume _validator.Validate(order) always returns false and the IOrderShipper.Ship() method is never called.
Original Code:
public class OrderProcessor : IOrderProcessor
{
private readonly IOrderValidator _validator;
private readonly IOrderShipper _shipper;
public OrderProcessor(IOrderValidator validator, IOrderShipper shipper)
{
_validator = validator;
_shipper = shipper;
}
public SuccessResult Process(Order order)
{
bool isValid = _validator.Validate(order);
if (isValid)
{
_shipper.Ship(order);
}
return CreateStatus(isValid);
}
private SuccessResult CreateStatus(bool isValid)
{
return isValid ? SuccessResult.Success : SuccessResult.Failed;
}
}
public class OrderShipper : IOrderShipper
{
public OrderShipper()
{
Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(777));
}
public void Ship(Order order)
{
//ship the order
}
}
Refactored Code
public class OrderProcessor : IOrderProcessor
{
private readonly IOrderValidator _validator;
public OrderProcessor(IOrderValidator validator)
{
_validator = validator;
}
public SuccessResult Process(Order order)
{
bool isValid = _validator.Validate(order);
if (isValid)
{
IOrderShipper shipper = new OrderShipperFactory().GetDefault();
shipper.Ship(order);
}
return CreateStatus(isValid);
}
private SuccessResult CreateStatus(bool isValid)
{
return isValid ? SuccessResult.Success : SuccessResult.Failed;
}
}
public class OrderShipperFactory
{
public static Func<IOrderShipper> CreationClosure;
public IOrderShipper GetDefault()
{
return CreationClosure(); //executes closure
}
}
And here is the method that configures this factory at start-up time (global.asax for ASP.NET):
private static void ConfigureFactories()
{
OrderShipperFactory.CreationClosure =
() => ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IOrderShipper>();
}