Building an IoC Container - Resolving Types without Dependencies

The code for this step is located on github.

As noted in the introduction, we are going to take this in steps and go in a test first manner.  So, let’s write our first test.

public class when_resolving_a_type_with_zero_dependencies : ContainerSpecBase
{
    static object _result;

    Because of = () =>
        _result = _container.Resolve(typeof(DummyService));

    It should_not_return_null = () =>
        _result.ShouldNotBeNull();

    It should_return_an_instance_of_the_requested_type = () =>
        _result.ShouldBeOfType();

    private class DummyService { }
}

If you haven’t used Machine.Specifications, this may seem like odd syntax.  But what I like about it is that it is easy to see what is going on when the container is resolving a type with zero dependencies.  First,  the container shouldn’t return null and second, the container should return an instance of the requested type.

Now that we have a test, we are going to start coding the implementation.  We’ll start with the simplest thing that could possibly work here.

public class Container
{
    public object Resolve(Type type)
    {
        return Activator.CreateInstance(type);
    }

    public T Resolve()
    {
        return (T)Resolve(typeof(T));
    }
}

Nothing special, and nothing that you couldn’t have figured out on your own.  In the next post, we’ll see how to handle this when the requested type has dependencies.