Guice - Optional Injection

Introduction

Injection is a process of injecting dependeny into an object. Optional injection means injecting the dependency if exists. Method and Field injections may be optionally dependent and should have some default value if dependency is not present. See the example below −

//spell checker implementation
class SpellCheckerImpl implements SpellChecker {

   private String dbUrl = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:5326/emp";

   public SpellCheckerImpl(){}
   
   @Inject(optional=true)
   public void setDbUrl(@Named("JDBC") String dbUrl){
      this.dbUrl = dbUrl;
   }
   ...
}

Example - Usage of Optional Injection

GuiceTester.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import com.google.inject.AbstractModule;
import com.google.inject.Guice;
import com.google.inject.ImplementedBy;
import com.google.inject.Inject;
import com.google.inject.Injector;
import com.google.inject.name.Named;

public class GuiceTester {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      Injector injector = Guice.createInjector(new TextEditorModule());
      TextEditor editor = injector.getInstance(TextEditor.class);
      editor.makeSpellCheck();
   } 
}

class TextEditor {
   private SpellChecker spellChecker;

   @Inject
   public TextEditor( SpellChecker spellChecker) {
      this.spellChecker = spellChecker;
   }

   public void makeSpellCheck(){
      spellChecker.checkSpelling();
   } 
}

//Binding Module
class TextEditorModule extends AbstractModule {

   @Override
   protected void configure() {} 
}

@ImplementedBy(SpellCheckerImpl.class)
interface SpellChecker {
   public void checkSpelling();
}

//spell checker implementation
class SpellCheckerImpl implements SpellChecker {

   private String dbUrl = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:5326/emp";

   public SpellCheckerImpl(){}
   
   @Inject(optional=true)
   public void setDbUrl(@Named("JDBC") String dbUrl){
      this.dbUrl = dbUrl;
   }

   @Override
   public void checkSpelling() { 
      System.out.println("Inside checkSpelling." );
      System.out.println(dbUrl); 
   }
}

Output

Compile and run the file, you will see the following output −

Inside checkSpelling.
jdbc:mysql://localhost:5326/emp