Re: Immutable cyclic graph with dependency injection

From:
"Donkey Hottie" <donkey@fred.pp.fi>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:58:53 +0300
Message-ID:
<dcjmh6-rde.ln1@wellington.fredriksson.dy.fi>
"Philipp" <djbulu@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b79c8960-4d0a-47ff-a1b6-c191c0391bb3@3g2000yqk.googlegroups.com

Hello,
I have a structure with two classes, let's call them Car
and SteeringWheel for the example.
Car /owns/ a SteeringWheel: in production code, the
lifetime of the SteeringWheel is directly dependent on
the lifetime of the Car.
In my design, the SteeringWheel object needs a reference
to the Car object (let's say, to transmit when the user
honks). I see several ways to build and initialize this
class-graph, but none so far that I think perfect.

What is the best way to create and initialise that
structure?

A few of my previous ideas are:
1) Build graph dependency in constructor:
public class Car {
 private final SteeringWheel wheel;
 public Car() {
   wheel = new SteeringWheel(this);
 }
}
public class SteeringWheel {
 private final Car car;
 public SteeringWheel(Car car) {
   this.car = car;
 }
}

Cons: a) /this/ pointer leaks in constructor b) Car is
not unit- testable without SteeringWheel

2) Use a setter and a static factory
public class Car {
 private SteeringWheel wheel;
 public void setWheel(SteeringWheel wheel) {
   this.wheel = wheel;
 }
 public static Car newInstance(){
   Car c = new Car();
   SteeringWheel s = new SteeringWheel(c);
   c.setWheel(s);
   return c;
 }
}
public class SteeringWheel {
 private final Car car;
 public SteeringWheel(Car car) {
   this.car = car;
 }
}
Cons: a) field /wheel/ in Car cannot be made final (I like
immutability) b) I must always check if wheel was
correctly set as nothing enforces the correct
construction sequence

3) The JavaBean way:
public class Car {
 private SteeringWheel wheel;
 public void setWheel(SteeringWheel wheel) {
   this.wheel = wheel;
 }
 public static Car newInstance(){
   Car c = new Car();
   SteeringWheel s = new SteeringWheel();
   c.setWheel(s);
   s.setCar(c);
   return c;
 }
}
public class SteeringWheel {
 private Car car;
 public void setCar(Car car) {
   this.car = car;
 }
}

Cons: Same problems as 2, but with added insecurity

Are there constructs to build that graph which bundle all
advantages? ie. testable through dependency injection,
immutable (for thread safety) and guaranteing the
invariants (example: wheel is not null)


I have changed the steering wheel in my car, more that once. During the
process, the steering wheel property of my car was definitely null. The car
was absulute useless during that time, and it threw an Exception if it was
tried to drive with. Starting the engine is no problem, but steering it was
pain.

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