What is "dependency injection"

n. (context computing English) A type-safe way of supplying an external dependency to a software component.

In software engineering, dependency injection is a software design pattern that implements inversion of control for resolving dependencies. A dependency is an object that can be used (a service). An injection is the passing of a dependency to a dependent object (a client) that would use it. The service is made part of the client's state. Passing the service to the client, rather than allowing a client to build or find the service, is the fundamental requirement of the pattern.

Dependency injection allows a program design to follow the dependency inversion principle. The client delegates to external code (the injector) the responsibility of providing its dependencies. The client is not allowed to call the injector code. It is the injecting code that constructs the services and calls the client to inject them. This means the client code does not need to know about the injecting code. The client does not need to know how to construct the services. The client does not need to know which actual services it is using. The client only needs to know about the intrinsic interfaces of the services because these define how the client may use the services. This separates the responsibilities of use and construction.

There are three common means for a client to accept a dependency injection: setter-, interface- and constructor-based injection. Setter and constructor injection differ mainly by when they can be used. Interface injection differs in that the dependency is given a chance to control its own injection. All require that separate construction code (the injector) take responsibility for introducing a client and its dependencies to each other.