Semperton Container

A lightweight PSR-11 dependency injection container
with reflection based autowiring.

---

Installation

Just use Composer:

composer require semperton/container

Container requires PHP 7.2+

Interface

new Container(iterable $definitions = [], bool $autowire = true)

The container ships with four public methods:

with(string $id, $entry): Container // add a container entry
get(string $id) // get entry (PSR-11)
has(string $id): bool // has entry (PSR-11)
create(string $id, array $params = []); // create a class with optional constructor substitution args
entries(): array // list all container entries

Usage

Classes can be resolved automatically as long as they do not require any special configuration (autowiring).

use Semperton\Container\Container;

class World
{
	public function __toString()
	{
		return 'World';
	}
}

class Hello
{
	protected $world;
	public function __construct(World $world)
	{
		$this->world = $world;
	}
	public function print()
	{
		echo "Hello {$this->world}";
	}
}

$container = new Container();
$hello = $container->get(Hello::class);
$hello2 = $container->get(Hello::class);

$hello instanceof Hello::class // true
$hello === $hello2 // true
$hello->print(); // 'Hello World'

Note that the container only creates instances once. It does not work as a factory. You should consider the Factory Pattern or use the create() method instead:

use Semperton\Container\Container;

class Mail
{
	public function __construct(Config $c, string $to)
	{
	}
}

class MailFactory
{
	public function createMail(string $to)
	{
		return new Mail(new Config(), $to);
	}
}

$mail1 = $container->get(MailFactory::class)->createMail('[email protected]');
$mail2 = $container->create(Mail::class, ['to' =>'[email protected]']);

The create() method will automatically resolve the Config dependency for Mail.

Configuration

You can configure the container with definitions. Callables (except invokable objects) are always treated as factories and can (!should) be used to bootstrap class instances:

use Semperton\Container\Container;

$container = new Container([

	'mail' => '[email protected]',
	'closure' => static function () { // closures must be wrapped in another closure
		return static function () {
			return 42;
		};
	},
	MailFactory::class => new MailFactory('[email protected]'), // avoid this, instead do
	MailFactory::class => static function (Container $c) { // lazy instantiation with a factory

		$sender = $c->get('mail');
		return new MailFactory($sender);
	}, // or
	// factory params are automatically resolved from the container
	MailFactory::class => static fn (string $mail) => new MailFactory($mail),
	Service::class => static fn (Dependency $dep) => new Service($dep)
]);

$container->get('mail'); // '[email protected]'
$container->get('closure')(); // 42
$container->get(MailFactory::class); // instance of MailFactory

The with() method also treats callables as factories.

Immutability

Once the container is created, it is immutable. If you like to add an entry after instantiation, keep in mind that the with() method always returns a new container instance:

use Semperton\Container\Container;

$container1 = new Container();
$container2 = $container1->with('number', 42);

$container1->has('number'); // false
$container2->has('number'); // true

$container1 === $container2 // false