Dependency Injection in .NET Core: Understanding and Implementing the Pattern

Kaushal Pareek
Geek Culture
Published in
2 min readJan 23, 2023
Photo by Oskar Yildiz on Unsplash

Dependency Injection (DI) is a design pattern that allows a class to receive its dependencies from an external source, rather than creating them itself. The main goal of DI is to improve the flexibility, testability and maintainability of the code by decoupling the classes and making them less dependent on each other. In the context of .NET Core, the built-in DI container can be used to manage the creation and lifetime of objects and their dependencies.

With the help of Dependency Injection, it becomes easy to manage and control the dependencies of different classes. It enables developers to write loosely-coupled code, which makes it easier to test, understand, and maintain.

Additionally, it can also help to improve application performance by reducing the number of unnecessary object creations and by allowing for better memory management.

Here’s an example of how to use dependency injection in a .NET Core application:

Create an interface and a class that implements it:

interface IService { }
class Service : IService { }

In the Startup class, configure the DI container to register the interface and class:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddTransient<IService, Service>();
}

In the controller or other class where the service is needed, add a constructor that accepts an IService parameter:

class MyController : Controller
{
private readonly IService _service;
public MyController(IService service)
{
_service = service;
}
// ...
}

When the controller is created, the DI container will instantiate a new instance of the Service class and pass it to the controller's constructor.

You can also use different lifetime options, like AddSingleton, AddScoped and AddTransient.

  • AddSingleton: creates a singleton object that is reused throughout the application.
  • AddScoped: creates a single object per client request.
  • AddTransient: creates a new object each time one is needed.

You can also use AddTransient<IMyService,MyService>() or AddScoped<IMyService,MyService>() or AddSingleton<IMyService,MyService>() to register the service.

You can also use AddDbContext to register the context in the DI container which is useful when you are working with the Entity Framework Core.

In conclusion, Dependency Injection is a powerful design pattern that can greatly improve the flexibility, testability, and maintainability of .NET Core applications. DotNet Core, developers can easily implement Dependency Injection in their projects and take advantage of its many benefits. Overall, Dependency Injection can be a valuable tool for creating robust, scalable and efficient applications with .NET Core.

Please let me know if you have any more questions or if you need additional information.

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Kaushal Pareek
Geek Culture

I have lot’s of interests and technology is one which aces that list.