Service Method Calls and Setter Injection

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Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.2 (the current stable version).

Tip

If you're using autowiring, you can use #[Required] or @required to automatically configure method calls.

Usually, you'll want to inject your dependencies via the constructor. But sometimes, especially if a dependency is optional, you may want to use "setter injection". For example:

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        // src/Service/MessageGenerator.php
namespace App\Service;

use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;

class MessageGenerator
{
    private $logger;

    public function setLogger(LoggerInterface $logger): void
    {
        $this->logger = $logger;
    }

    // ...
}
    

To configure the container to call the setLogger method, use the calls key:

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        # config/services.yaml
services:
    App\Service\MessageGenerator:
        # ...
        calls:
            - setLogger: ['@logger']
    

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        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="App\Service\MessageGenerator">
            <!-- ... -->
            <call method="setLogger">
                <argument type="service" id="logger"/>
            </call>
        </service>
    </services>
</container>
    

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        // config/services.php
namespace Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Loader\Configurator;

use App\Service\MessageGenerator;

return function(ContainerConfigurator $container) {
    // ...

    $services->set(MessageGenerator::class)
        // In versions earlier to Symfony 5.1 the service() function was called ref()
        ->call('setLogger', [service('logger')]);
};
    

To provide immutable services, some classes implement immutable setters. Such setters return a new instance of the configured class instead of mutating the object they were called on:

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        // src/Service/MessageGenerator.php
namespace App\Service;

use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;

class MessageGenerator
{
    private $logger;

    public function withLogger(LoggerInterface $logger): self
    {
        $new = clone $this;
        $new->logger = $logger;

        return $new;
    }

    // ...
}
    

Because the method returns a separate cloned instance, configuring such a service means using the return value of the wither method ($service = $service->withLogger($logger);). The configuration to tell the container it should do so would be like:

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        # config/services.yaml
services:
    App\Service\MessageGenerator:
        # ...
        calls:
            - withLogger: !returns_clone ['@logger']
    

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        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="App\Service\MessageGenerator">
            <!-- ... -->
            <call method="withLogger" returns-clone="true">
                <argument type="service" id="logger"/>
            </call>
        </service>
    </services>
</container>
    

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        // config/services.php
use App\Service\MessageGenerator;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Reference;

$container->register(MessageGenerator::class)
    ->addMethodCall('withLogger', [new Reference('logger')], true);
    

Tip

If autowire is enabled, you can also use annotations; with the previous example it would be:

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        /**
 * @required
 * @return static
 */
public function withLogger(LoggerInterface $logger)
{
    $new = clone $this;
    $new->logger = $logger;

    return $new;
}
    

You can also leverage the PHP 8 static return type instead of the @return static annotation. If you don't want a method with a PHP 8 static return type and a @required annotation to behave as a wither, you can add a @return $this annotation to disable the returns clone feature.

5.1

Support for the PHP 8 static return type was introduced in Symfony 5.1.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.

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