Developer's Guide to Dependency Injection Using Unity

Contents

• Foreword by Chris Tavares
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Dependency Injection
• Chapter 3 – Dependency Injection with Unity
• Chapter 4 – Interception
• Chapter 5 – Interception using Unity
• Chapter 6 – Extending Unity
• Chapter 7 – Summary
• Tales from the Trenches: Using Unity
• Tales from the Trenches: One User's Story – Customizing Unity
• Tales from the Trenches: Using Unity in a Windows Store app
• Appendix A – Unity and Windows Store apps

About This Guide

This guide is one of the resources available with the Unity v3 release to help you to learn about Unity, learn about some of the problems and issues that Unity can help you to address, and get started using Unity in your applications. Unity is primarily a dependency injection container and so the guide also contains an introduction to dependency injection that you can read in isolation even if you don’t plan to use Unity, although we hope you will.

The chapters are designed to be read in order, each one building on the previous one, and alternating chapters that cover some of the conceptual background material with chapters that address the specifics of using Unity in your own applications. If you’re already familiar with concepts such as dependency injection and interception, you can probably focus on Chapter 3, “Dependency Injection with Unity,” Chapter 5, “Interception with Unity,” and Chapter 6, “Extending Unity.”

The first two chapters introduce the conceptual background and explain what dependency injection is, what are its benefits and drawbacks, and when you should consider using it. Chapter 3 then applies this theoretical knowledge to the use of the Unity container and provides examples and guidance on how to use it in a variety of scenarios.

Chapter 4 describes interception as a technique to dynamically insert code that provides support for crosscutting concerns into your application.

Chapter 5 discusses advanced topics of interception and policy injection, along with alternatives, and offers some suggestions about when you should use it.

The final chapter introduces some of the ways that you can extend Unity such as creating container extensions or creating custom lifetime managers.

All of the chapters include references to additional resources such as books, blog posts, and papers that will provide additional detail if you want to explore some of the topics in greater depth. For your convenience, there is a bibliography online that contains all the links so that these resources are just a click away.

This guide also includes several case studies, called Tales from the Trenches, of developers adapting and customizing Unity. If you want to share your story with the developer community at large, send it to ourstory@microsoft.com.

The majority of the code samples in the chapters come from a collection of sample applications that you can download and play with.

This guide does not include detailed information about every Unity feature or every class in the Unity assemblies. For that information, you should look at the Unity Reference Documentation and the Unity API Documentation.

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services and who wants to learn how to realize the benefits of using the Unity dependency injection container in his or her applications. You should be familiar with the Microsoft .NET Framework, and Microsoft Visual Studio to derive full benefit from reading this guide.

What Do You Need to Get Started?

The system requirements and prerequisites for using Unity are:

• Supported architectures: x86 and x64.
• Operating systems: Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012.
• Supported .NET Frameworks: Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5, .NET for Windows Store Apps (previously known as WinRT).
• Rich development environment: Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, Professional, Ultimate, or Express editions.

You can use the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio to install the Unity assemblies in your projects.

Who’s Who

The guide includes discussions and examples that relate to the use of Unity in a variety of scenarios and types of application. A panel of experts provides a commentary throughout the book, offering a range of viewpoints from developers with various levels of skill, an architect, and an IT professional. The following table lists the various experts who appear throughout the guide.

The Team Who Brought You This Guide

The Unity 3 Development Team

Thank you!

Next Topic | Home | Community