Inflectors

Deprecation Notice

DEPRECATED: Inflectors are deprecated as of v6.0 and will be removed in v7.0. Please migrate to the new Event System which provides more flexibility and better performance.

Upgrade Guide

The event system provides a more powerful and flexible replacement for inflectors. Here’s how to migrate common inflector patterns:

Method Invocation

Before (Inflectors):

<?php 
$container->inflector(LoggerAwareInterface::class)
    ->invokeMethod('setLogger', [Logger::class]);

After (Events):

<?php 
use League\Container\Event\ServiceResolvedEvent;

$container->listen(ServiceResolvedEvent::class, function (ServiceResolvedEvent $event) use ($container) {
    $service = $event->getResolved();
    $logger = $container->get(Logger::class);
    $service->setLogger($logger);
})->forType(LoggerAwareInterface::class);

Property Setting

Before (Inflectors):

<?php 
$container->inflector(DatabaseAwareInterface::class)
    ->setProperty('connection', Database::class);

After (Events):

<?php 
$container->listen(ServiceResolvedEvent::class, function (ServiceResolvedEvent $event) use ($container) {
    $service = $event->getResolved();
    $service->connection = $container->get(Database::class);
})->forType(DatabaseAwareInterface::class);

Callback Invocation

Before (Inflectors):

<?php 
$container->inflector(TimestampableInterface::class)
    ->invokeMethods([
        'setCreatedAt' => [new DateTime()],
        'setUpdatedAt' => [new DateTime()]
    ]);

After (Events):

<?php 
$container->listen(ServiceResolvedEvent::class, function (ServiceResolvedEvent $event) {
    $service = $event->getResolved();
    $service->setCreatedAt(new DateTime());
    $service->setUpdatedAt(new DateTime());
})->forType(TimestampableInterface::class);

Benefits of Events Over Inflectors

Better Performance: Events can be filtered more efficiently
More Flexible: Multiple filtering criteria (type, tag, ID, custom logic)
PSR-14 Compatible: Works with standard event dispatchers
Better Testing: Easier to test event listeners in isolation
Type Safety: Better IDE support and static analysis

Introduction

Inflectors allow you to define the manipulation of an object of a specific type as the final step before it is returned by the container.

This is useful for example when you want to invoke a method on all objects that implement a specific interface.

Usage

Imagine that you have a LoggerAwareInterface and would like to invoke the method called setLogger passing in a logger every time a class is retrieved that implements this interface.

<?php 

$container = new League\Container\Container();

$container->add(Acme\Logger::class);
$container->add(Acme\LoggerAwareClass::class); // implements LoggerAwareInterface
$container->add(Acme\Other\LoggerAwareClass::class); // implements LoggerAwareInterface

$container
    ->inflector(LoggerAwareInterface::class)
    ->invokeMethod('setLogger', [Acme\Logger::class]) // Acme\Logger will be resolved via the container
;

Now instead of adding a method call to each class individually we can simply define an inflector to invoke the method for every class of that type.