[dependency-injection] Why does one use dependency injection?

I'm trying to understand dependency injections (DI), and once again I failed. It just seems silly. My code is never a mess; I hardly write virtual functions and interfaces (although I do once in a blue moon) and all my configuration is magically serialized into a class using json.net (sometimes using an XML serializer).

I don't quite understand what problem it solves. It looks like a way to say: "hi. When you run into this function, return an object that is of this type and uses these parameters/data."
But... why would I ever use that? Note I have never needed to use object as well, but I understand what that is for.

What are some real situations in either building a website or desktop application where one would use DI? I can come up with cases easily for why someone may want to use interfaces/virtual functions in a game, but it's extremely rare (rare enough that I can't remember a single instance) to use that in non-game code.

The main reason to use DI is that you want to put the responsibility of the knowledge of the implementation where the knowledge is there. The idea of DI is very much inline with encapsulation and design by interface. If the front end asks from the back end for some data, then is it unimportant for the front end how the back end resolves that question. That is up to the requesthandler.

That is already common in OOP for a long time. Many times creating code pieces like:

I_Dosomething x = new Impl_Dosomething();

The drawback is that the implementation class is still hardcoded, hence has the front end the knowledge which implementation is used. DI takes the design by interface one step further, that the only thing the front end needs to know is the knowledge of the interface. In between the DYI and DI is the pattern of a service locator, because the front end has to provide a key (present in the registry of the service locator) to lets its request become resolved. Service locator example:

I_Dosomething x = ServiceLocator.returnDoing(String pKey);

DI example:

I_Dosomething x = DIContainer.returnThat();

One of the requirements of DI is that the container must be able to find out which class is the implementation of which interface. Hence does a DI container require strongly typed design and only one implementation for each interface at the same time. If you need more implementations of an interface at the same time (like a calculator), you need the service locator or factory design pattern.

D(b)I: Dependency Injection and Design by Interface. This restriction is not a very big practical problem though. The benefit of using D(b)I is that it serves communication between the client and the provider. An interface is a perspective on an object or a set of behaviours. The latter is crucial here.

I prefer the administration of service contracts together with D(b)I in coding. They should go together. The use of D(b)I as a technical solution without organizational administration of service contracts is not very beneficial in my point of view, because DI is then just an extra layer of encapsulation. But when you can use it together with organizational administration you can really make use of the organizing principle D(b)I offers. It can help you in the long run to structure communication with the client and other technical departments in topics as testing, versioning and the development of alternatives. When you have an implicit interface as in a hardcoded class, then is it much less communicable over time then when you make it explicit using D(b)I. It all boils down to maintenance, which is over time and not at a time. :-)

I think a lot of times people get confused about the difference between dependency injection and a dependency injection framework (or a container as it is often called).

Dependency injection is a very simple concept. Instead of this code:

public class A {
  private B b;

  public A() {
    this.b = new B(); // A *depends on* B
  }

  public void DoSomeStuff() {
    // Do something with B here
  }
}

public static void Main(string[] args) {
  A a = new A();
  a.DoSomeStuff();
}

you write code like this:

public class A {
  private B b;

  public A(B b) { // A now takes its dependencies as arguments
    this.b = b; // look ma, no "new"!
  }

  public void DoSomeStuff() {
    // Do something with B here
  }
}

public static void Main(string[] args) {
  B b = new B(); // B is constructed here instead
  A a = new A(b);
  a.DoSomeStuff();
}

And that's it. Seriously. This gives you a ton of advantages. Two important ones are the ability to control functionality from a central place (the Main() function) instead of spreading it throughout your program, and the ability to more easily test each class in isolation (because you can pass mocks or other faked objects into its constructor instead of a real value).

The drawback, of course, is that you now have one mega-function that knows about all the classes used by your program. That's what DI frameworks can help with. But if you're having trouble understanding why this approach is valuable, I'd recommend starting with manual dependency injection first, so you can better appreciate what the various frameworks out there can do for you.

Quite frankly, I believe people use these Dependency Injection libraries/frameworks because they just know how to do things in runtime, as opposed to load time. All this crazy machinery can be substituted by setting your CLASSPATH environment variable (or other language equivalent, like PYTHONPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH) to point to your alternative implementations (all with the same name) of a particular class. So in the accepted answer you'd just leave your code like

var logger = new Logger() //sane, simple code

And the appropriate logger will be instantiated because the JVM (or whatever other runtime or .so loader you have) would fetch it from the class configured via the environment variable mentioned above.

No need to make everything an interface, no need to have the insanity of spawning broken objects to have stuff injected into them, no need to have insane constructors with every piece of internal machinery exposed to the world. Just use the native functionality of whatever language you're using instead of coming up with dialects that won't work in any other project.

P.S.: This is also true for testing/mocking. You can very well just set your environment to load the appropriate mock class, in load time, and skip the mocking framework madness.

As the other answers stated, dependency injection is a way to create your dependencies outside of the class that uses it. You inject them from the outside, and take control about their creation away from the inside of your class. This is also why dependency injection is a realization of the Inversion of control (IoC) principle.

IoC is the principle, where DI is the pattern. The reason that you might "need more than one logger" is never actually met, as far as my experience goes, but the actualy reason is, that you really need it, whenever you test something. An example:

My Feature:

When I look at an offer, I want to mark that I looked at it automatically, so that I don't forget to do so.

You might test this like this:

[Test]
public void ShouldUpdateTimeStamp
{
    // Arrange
    var formdata = { . . . }

    // System under Test
    var weasel = new OfferWeasel();

    // Act
    var offer = weasel.Create(formdata)

    // Assert
    offer.LastUpdated.Should().Be(new DateTime(2013,01,13,13,01,0,0));
}

So somewhere in the OfferWeasel, it builds you an offer Object like this:

public class OfferWeasel
{
    public Offer Create(Formdata formdata)
    {
        var offer = new Offer();
        offer.LastUpdated = DateTime.Now;
        return offer;
    }
}

The problem here is, that this test will most likely always fail, since the date that is being set will differ from the date being asserted, even if you just put DateTime.Now in the test code it might be off by a couple of milliseconds and will therefore always fail. A better solution now would be to create an interface for this, that allows you to control what time will be set:

public interface IGotTheTime
{
    DateTime Now {get;}
}

public class CannedTime : IGotTheTime
{
    public DateTime Now {get; set;}
}

public class ActualTime : IGotTheTime
{
    public DateTime Now {get { return DateTime.Now; }}
}

public class OfferWeasel
{
    private readonly IGotTheTime _time;

    public OfferWeasel(IGotTheTime time)
    {
        _time = time;
    }

    public Offer Create(Formdata formdata)
    {
        var offer = new Offer();
        offer.LastUpdated = _time.Now;
        return offer;
    }
}

The Interface is the abstraction. One is the REAL thing, and the other one allows you to fake some time where it is needed. The test can then be changed like this:

[Test]
public void ShouldUpdateTimeStamp
{
    // Arrange
    var date = new DateTime(2013, 01, 13, 13, 01, 0, 0);
    var formdata = { . . . }

    var time = new CannedTime { Now = date };

    // System under test
    var weasel= new OfferWeasel(time);

    // Act
    var offer = weasel.Create(formdata)

    // Assert
    offer.LastUpdated.Should().Be(date);
}

Like this, you applied the "inversion of control" principle, by injecting a dependency (getting the current time). The main reason to do this is for easier isolated unit testing, there are other ways of doing it. For example, an interface and a class here is unnecessary since in C# functions can be passed around as variables, so instead of an interface you could use a Func<DateTime> to achieve the same. Or, if you take a dynamic approach, you just pass any object that has the equivalent method (duck typing), and you don't need an interface at all.

You will hardly ever need more than one logger. Nonetheless, dependency injection is essential for statically typed code such as Java or C#.

And... It should also be noted that an object can only properly fulfill its purpose at runtime, if all its dependencies are available, so there is not much use in setting up property injection. In my opinion, all dependencies should be satisfied when the constructor is being called, so constructor-injection is the thing to go with.

I hope that helped.

I think the classic answer is to create a more decoupled application, which has no knowledge of which implementation will be used during runtime.

For example, we're a central payment provider, working with many payment providers around the world. However, when a request is made, I have no idea which payment processor I'm going to call. I could program one class with a ton of switch cases, such as:

class PaymentProcessor{

    private String type;

    public PaymentProcessor(String type){
        this.type = type;
    }

    public void authorize(){
        if (type.equals(Consts.PAYPAL)){
            // Do this;
        }
        else if(type.equals(Consts.OTHER_PROCESSOR)){
            // Do that;
        }
    }
}

Now imagine that now you'll need to maintain all this code in a single class because it's not decoupled properly, you can imagine that for every new processor you'll support, you'll need to create a new if // switch case for every method, this only gets more complicated, however, by using Dependency Injection (or Inversion of Control - as it's sometimes called, meaning that whoever controls the running of the program is known only at runtime, and not complication), you could achieve something very neat and maintainable.

class PaypalProcessor implements PaymentProcessor{

    public void authorize(){
        // Do PayPal authorization
    }
}

class OtherProcessor implements PaymentProcessor{

    public void authorize(){
        // Do other processor authorization
    }
}

class PaymentFactory{

    public static PaymentProcessor create(String type){

        switch(type){
            case Consts.PAYPAL;
                return new PaypalProcessor();

            case Consts.OTHER_PROCESSOR;
                return new OtherProcessor();
        }
    }
}

interface PaymentProcessor{
    void authorize();
}

** The code won't compile, I know :)