Using zend-servicemanager

zend-servicemanager is a code-driven dependency injection container provided as a standalone component by Zend Framework. It features:

  • lazy-loading of invokable (constructor-less) classes.
  • ability to define factories for specific classes.
  • ability to define generalized factories for classes with identical construction patterns (aka abstract factories).
  • ability to create lazy-loading proxies.
  • ability to intercept before or after instantiation to alter the construction workflow (aka delegator factories).
  • interface injection (via initializers).

zend-servicemanager may either be created and populated programmatically, or via configuration. Configuration uses the following structure:

[
    'services' => [
        'service name' => $serviceInstance,
    ],
    'invokables' => [
        'service name' => 'class to instantiate',
    ],
    'factories' => [
        'service name' => 'callable, Zend\ServiceManager\FactoryInterface instance, or name of factory class returning the service',
    ],
    'abstract_factories' => [
        'class name of Zend\ServiceManager\AbstractFactoryInterface implementation',
    ],
    'delegators' => [
        'service name' => [
            'class name of Zend\ServiceManager\DelegatorFactoryInterface implementation',
        ],
    ],
    'lazy_services' => [
        'class_map' => [
            'service name' => 'Class\Name\Of\Service',
        ],
    ],
    'initializers' => [
        'callable, Zend\ServiceManager\InitializerInterface implementation, or name of initializer class',
    ],
]

Read more about zend-servicemanager in its documentation.

Installing zend-servicemanager

To use zend-servicemanager with zend-expressive, you can install it via composer:

$ composer require zendframework/zend-servicemanager

Configuring zend-servicemanager

You can configure zend-servicemanager either programmatically or via configuration. We'll show you both methods.

Programmatically

To use zend-servicemanager programatically, you'll need to create a Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager instance, and then start populating it.

For this example, we'll assume your application configuration (used by several factories to configure instances) is in config/config.php, and that that file returns an array.

We'll create a config/services.php file that creates and returns a Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager instance as follows:

use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager;

$container = new ServiceManager();

// Application and configuration
$container->setService('config', include 'config/config.php');
$container->setFactory(
    'Zend\Expressive\Application',
    'Zend\Expressive\Container\ApplicationFactory'
);

// Routing
// In most cases, you can instantiate the router you want to use without using a
// factory:
$container->setInvokableClass(
    'Zend\Expressive\Router\RouterInterface',
    'Zend\Expressive\Router\AuraRouter'
);

// Templating
// In most cases, you can instantiate the template renderer you want to use
// without using a factory:
$container->setInvokableClass(
    'Zend\Expressive\Template\TemplateRendererInterface',
    'Zend\Expressive\Plates\PlatesRenderer'
);

// These next two can be added in any environment; they won't be used unless
// you add the WhoopsErrorHandler as the FinalHandler implementation:
$container->setFactory(
    'Zend\Expressive\Whoops',
    'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsFactory'
);
$container->setFactory(
    'Zend\Expressive\WhoopsPageHandler',
    'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsPageHandlerFactory'
);

// Error Handling
// If in development:
$container->setFactory(
    'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler',
    'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsErrorHandlerFactory'
);

// If in production:
$container->setFactory(
    'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler',
    'Zend\Expressive\Container\TemplatedErrorHandlerFactory'
);

return $container;

Your bootstrap (typically public/index.php) will then look like this:

chdir(dirname(__DIR__));
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
$container = require 'config/services.php';
$app = $container->get('Zend\Expressive\Application');
$app->run();

Configuration-Driven Container

Alternately, you can use a configuration file to define the container. As before, we'll define our configuration in config/config.php, and our config/services.php file will still return our service manager instance; we'll define the service configuration in config/dependencies.php:

return [
    'services' => [
        'config' => include __DIR__ . '/config.php',
    ],
    'invokables' => [
        'Zend\Expressive\Router\RouterInterface'     => 'Zend\Expressive\Router\AuraRouter',
        'Zend\Expressive\Template\TemplateRendererInterface' => 'Zend\Expressive\Plates\PlatesRenderer'
    ],
    'factories' => [
        'Zend\Expressive\Application'       => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\ApplicationFactory',
        'Zend\Expressive\Whoops'            => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsFactory',
        'Zend\Expressive\WhoopsPageHandler' => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsPageHandlerFactory',
    ],
];

config/services.php becomes:

use Zend\ServiceManager\Config;
use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager;

return new ServiceManager(new Config(include 'config/dependencies.php'));

There is one problem, however: which final handler should you configure? You have two choices on how to approach this:

  • Selectively inject the factory in the bootstrap.
  • Define the final handler service in an environment specific file and use file globbing to merge files.

In the first case, you would change the config/services.php example to look like this:

use Zend\ServiceManager\Config;
use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager;

$container = new ServiceManager(new Config(include 'config/services.php'));
switch ($variableOrConstantIndicatingEnvironment) {
    case 'development':
        $container->setFactory(
            'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler',
            'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsErrorHandlerFactory'
        );
        break;
    case 'production':
    default:
        $container->setFactory(
            'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler',
            'Zend\Expressive\Container\TemplatedErrorHandlerFactory'
        );
}
return $container;

In the second case, you will need to install zend-config:

$ composer require zendframework/zend-config

Then, create the directory config/autoload/, and create two files, dependencies.global.php and dependencies.local.php. In your .gitignore, add an entry for config/autoload/*local.php to ensure "local" (environment-specific) files are excluded from the repository.

config/dependencies.php will look like this:

use Zend\Config\Factory as ConfigFactory;

return ConfigFactory::fromFiles(
    glob('config/autoload/dependencies.{global,local}.php', GLOB_BRACE)
);

config/autoload/dependencies.global.php will look like this:

return [
    'services' => [
        'config' => include __DIR__ . '/config.php',
    ],
    'invokables' => [
        'Zend\Expressive\Router\RouterInterface'     => 'Zend\Expressive\Router\AuraRouter',
        'Zend\Expressive\Template\TemplateRendererInterface' => 'Zend\Expressive\Plates\PlatesRenderer'
    ],
    'factories' => [
        'Zend\Expressive\Application'       => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\ApplicationFactory',
        'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler'      => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\TemplatedErrorHandlerFactory',
    ],
];

config/autoload/dependencies.local.php on your development machine can look like this:

return [
    'factories' => [
        'Zend\Expressive\FinalHandler'      => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsErrorHandlerFactory',
        'Zend\Expressive\Whoops'            => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsFactory',
        'Zend\Expressive\WhoopsPageHandler' => 'Zend\Expressive\Container\WhoopsPageHandlerFactory',
    ],
];

Using the above approach allows you to keep the bootstrap file minimal and agnostic of environment. (Note: you can take a similar approach with the application configuration.)