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03.

The Dreaded Dependency Injection

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The MarkdownTransformer will do two things: parse markdown and eventually cache it. Let's start with the first.

Open up GenusController and copy the code that originally parsed the text through markdown. Now... paste this into the parse function, return that and update the variable to $str. Wow, that was easy:

13 lines | src/AppBundle/Service/MarkdownTransformer.php
// ... lines 1 - 4
class MarkdownTransformer
{
public function parse($str)
{
return $this->get('markdown.parser')
->transform($str);
}
}

Go back and refresh. It explodes!

Attempted to call an undefined method named "get" on MarkdownTransformer

Forget about Symfony: this makes sense. The class we just created does not have a get() function and it doesn't extend anything that would give this to us.

In a controller, we do have this function. But more importantly, we have access to the container, either via that shortcut method or by saying $this->container. From there we can fetch any service by calling ->get() on it.

But that's special to the controller: as soon as you're not in a controller - like MarkdownTransformer - you don't have access to the container, its services... or anything.

The Dependency Injection Flow

So here's the quadrillion bitcoin question: how can we get access to the container inside MarkdownTransformer? But wait, we don't really need the whole container: all we really need is the markdown parser object. So a better question is: how can we get access to the markdown parser object inside MarkdownTransformer?

The answer is probably the scariest word that was ever created for such a simple idea: dependency injection. Ah, ah, ah. I think someone invented that word just to be a jerk... especially because it's so simple...

Here's how it goes: whenever you're inside of a class and you need access to an object that you don't have - like the markdown parser - add a public function __construct() and add the object you need as an argument:

20 lines | src/AppBundle/Service/MarkdownTransformer.php
// ... lines 1 - 4
class MarkdownTransformer
{
// ... lines 7 - 8
public function __construct($markdownParser)
{
// ... line 11
}
// ... lines 13 - 18
}

Next create a private property and in the constructor, assign that to the object: $this->markdownParser = $markdownParser:

20 lines | src/AppBundle/Service/MarkdownTransformer.php
// ... lines 1 - 4
class MarkdownTransformer
{
private $markdownParser;
public function __construct($markdownParser)
{
$this->markdownParser = $markdownParser;
}
// ... lines 13 - 18
}

Now that the markdown parser is set on the property, use it in parse(): get rid of $this->get() and just use $this->markdownParser:

20 lines | src/AppBundle/Service/MarkdownTransformer.php
// ... lines 1 - 4
class MarkdownTransformer
{
// ... lines 7 - 13
public function parse($str)
{
return $this->markdownParser
->transform($str);
}
}

We're done! Well, done with this class. You see: whoever instantiates our MarkdownTransformer will now be forced to pass in a markdown parser object.

Of course now we broke the code in our controller. Yep, in GenusController PhpStorm is angry: we're missing the required $markdownParser argument in the new MarkdownTransformer() call. That's cool - because now that we're in the controller, we do have access to that object. Pass in $this->get('markdown.parser'):

127 lines | src/AppBundle/Controller/GenusController.php
// ... lines 1 - 13
class GenusController extends Controller
{
// ... lines 16 - 58
public function showAction($genusName)
{
// ... lines 61 - 69
$markdownTransformer = new MarkdownTransformer(
$this->get('markdown.parser')
);
// ... lines 73 - 99
}
// ... lines 101 - 125
}

Try it out!

It's alive! Twig is escaping the <p> tag - but that proves that markdown parsing is happening. The process we just did is dependency injection. It basically says: if an object needs something, you should pass it to that object. It's really programming 101. But if it still feels weird, you'll see a lot more of it.