Binding.md

lang	en
title	Binding
keywords	LoopBack 4.0, LoopBack 4
sidebar	lb4_sidebar
permalink	/doc/en/lb4/Binding.html

What is Binding?

Binding represents items within a Context instance. A binding connects its value to a unique key as the address to access the entry in a context.

Attributes of a binding

A binding typically has the following attributes:

• key: Each binding has a key to uniquely identify itself within the context
• scope: The scope controls how the binding value is created and cached within the context
• tags: Tags are names or name/value pairs to describe or annotate a binding
• value: Each binding must be configured with a type of value provider so that it be resolved to a constant or calculated value

How to create a binding?

There are a few ways to create a binding:

• Use Binding constructor:

  const binding = new Binding('my-key');

• Use Binding.bind()

  const binding = Binding.bind('my-key');

• Use context.bind()

  const context = new Context();
  context.bind('my-key');

How to set up a binding?

The Binding class provides a set of fluent APIs to create and configure a binding.

Supply the value or a way to resolve the value

The value can be supplied in one the following forms:

A constant

If binding is always resolved to a fixed value, we can bind it to a constant, which can be a string, a function, an object, an array, or any other types.

binding.to('my-value');

Please note the constant value cannot be a Promise to avoid confusions.

A factory function

Sometimes the value needs to be dynamically calculated, such as the current time or a value fetched from a remote service or database.

binding.toDynamicValue(() => 'my-value');
binding.toDynamicValue(() => new Date());
binding.toDynamicValue(() => Promise.resolve('my-value'));

A class

The binding can represent an instance of a class, for example, a controller. A class can be used to instantiate an instance as the resolved value. Dependency injection is often leveraged for its members.

class MyController {
  constructor(@inject('my-options') private options: MyOptions) {
    // ...
  }
}

binding.toClass(MyController);

A provider

A provider is a class with value() method to calculate the value from its instance. The main reason to use a provider class is to leverage dependency injection for the factory function.

class MyValueProvider implements Provider<string> {
  constructor(@inject('my-options') private options: MyOptions) {
    // ...
  }

  value() {
    return this.options.defaultValue;
  }
}

binding.toProvider(MyValueProvider);

An alias

An alias is the key with optional path to resolve the value from another binding. For example, if we want to get options from RestServer for the API explorer, we can configure the apiExplorer.options to be resolved from servers.RestServer.options#apiExplorer.

ctx.bind('servers.RestServer.options').to({apiExplorer: {path: '/explorer'}});
ctx
  .bind('apiExplorer.options')
  .toAlias('servers.RestServer.options#apiExplorer');
const apiExplorerOptions = await ctx.get('apiExplorer.options'); // => {path: '/explorer'}

Configure the scope

A binding provides values for requests such as ctx.get(), ctx.getSync(), and dependency injections. The binding scope controls whether a binding returns a new value or share the same value for multiple requests within the same context hierarchy. For example, value1 and value2 in the code below can be different or the same depending on the scope of Binding(my-key).

const value1 = await ctx.get('my-key');
const value2 = ctx.getSync('my-key');

We allow a binding to be resolved within a context using one of the following scopes:

• BindingScope.TRANSIENT (default)
• BindingScope.CONTEXT
• BindingScope.SINGLETON

For a complete list of descriptions, please see BindingScope.

binding.inScope(BindingScope.SINGLETON);

The binding scope can be accessed via binding.scope.

Choose the right scope

The binding scope should be determined by answers to the following questions:

1. Do you need to have a new value from the binding for each request?
2. Does the resolved value for a binding hold or access states that are request specific?

Please note that the binding scope has no effect on bindings created with to(). For example:

ctx.bind('my-name').to('John Smith');

The my-name binding will always resolve to 'John Smith'.

The binding scope will impact values provided by toDynamicValue, toClass, and toProvider.

Let's say we need to have a binding that gives us the current date.

ctx.bind('current-date').toDynamicValue(() => new Date());
const d1 = ctx.getSync('current-date');
const d2 = ctx.getSync('current-date');
// d1 !== d2

By default, the binding scope is TRANSIENT. In the code above, d1 and d2 are resolved by calling new Date() for each getSync('current-date'). Two different dates are assigned to d1 and d2 to reflect the corresponding date for each resolution.

Now you can guess the code snippet below will produce the same date for d1 and d2, which is not desirable.

ctx
  .bind('current-date')
  .toDynamicValue(() => new Date())
  .inScope(BindingScope.SINGLETON);
const d1 = ctx.getSync<Date>('current-date');
const d2 = ctx.getSync<Date>('current-date');
// d1 === d2

The SINGLETON scope is useful for some use cases, such as:

1. Share states in a single instance across multiple consumers of the binding

   export class GlobalCounter {
     public count = 0;
   }
   
   ctx
     .bind('global-counter')
     .toClass(GlobalCounter)
     .inScope(BindingScope.SINGLETON);
   const c1: GlobalCounter = await ctx.get('global-counter');
   c1.count++; // c1.count is now 1
   const c2: GlobalCounter = await ctx.get('global-counter');
   // c2 is the same instance as c1
   // c2.count is 1 too

2. Prevent creation of multiple instances if one single instance can be shared as the consumers do not need to hold or access different states

   For example, the following GreetingController implementation does not access any information beyond the method parameters which are passed in as arguments. A shared instance of GreetingController can invoke greet with different arguments, such as c1.greet('John') and c1.greet('Jane').

   // Mark the controller class a candidate for singleton binding
   @bind({scope: BindingScope.SINGLETON})
   export class GreetingController {
     greet(name: string) {
       return `Hello, ${name}`;
     }
   }

   GreetingController is a good candidate to use SINGLETON so that only one instance is created within the application context and it can be shared by all requests. The scope eliminates the overhead to instantiate GreetingController per request.

   // createBindingFromClass() respects `@bind` and sets the binding scope to `SINGLETON'
   const binding = ctx.add(createBindingFromClass(GreetingController));
   const c1 = ctx.getSync(binding.key);
   const c2 = ctx.getSync(binding.key);
   // c2 is the same instance as c1
   c1.greet('John'); // invoke c1.greet for 'John' => 'Hello, John'
   c2.greet('Jane'); // invoke c2.greet for 'Jane' => 'Hello, Jane'

Rule of thumb: Use TRANSIENT as the safe default and choose SINGLETON if you want to share the same instance for all consumers without breaking concurrent requests.

Let's look at another use case that we need to access the information from the current request, such as http url or logged in user:

export class GreetingCurrentUserController {
  @inject(SecurityBindings.USER)
  private currentUserProfile: UserProfile;

  greet() {
    return `Hello, ${this.currentUserProfile.name}`;
  }
}

Instances of GreetingCurrentUserController depend on currentUserProfile, which is injected as a property. We have to use TRANSIENT scope so that a new instance is created per request to hold the logged in user for each request.

The constraint of being transient can be lifted by using method parameter injection to move the request-specific injection to parameters per method invocation.

export class SingletonGreetingCurrentUserController {
  greet(@inject(SecurityBindings.USER) currentUserProfile: UserProfile) {
    return `Hello, ${this.currentUserProfile.name}`;
  }
}

The new implementation above does not hold request specific states as properties in its instances anymore and thus it's qualified to be in SINGLETON scope.

ctx
  .bind('controllers.SingletonGreetingCurrentUserController')
  .toClass(SingletonGreetingCurrentUserController)
  .inScope(BindingScope.SINGLETON);

A single instance of SingletonGreetingCurrentUserController is created within the context that contains the binding. But the greet method can still be invoked with different request contexts, each of which has its own logged in user. Method parameter injections are fulfilled with the request context, which can be different from the context (such as application) used to instantiate the class as a singleton.

{% include note.html content=" To understand the difference between @bind() and ctx.bind(), see Configure binding attributes for a class. " %}

Describe tags

Tags can be used to annotate bindings so that they can be grouped or searched. For example, we can tag a binding as a controller or repository. The tags are often introduced by an extension point to mark its extensions contributed by other components.

There are two types of tags:

• Simple tag - a tag string, such as 'controller'
• Value tag - a name/value pair, such as {name: 'MyController'}

Internally, we use the tag name as its value for simple tags, for example, {controller: 'controller'}.

binding.tag('controller');
binding.tag('controller', {name: 'MyController'});

The binding tags can be accessed via binding.tagMap or binding.tagNames.

Chain multiple steps

The Binding fluent APIs allow us to chain multiple steps as follows:

context
  .bind('my-key')
  .to('my-value')
  .tag('my-tag');

Apply a template function

It's common that we want to configure certain bindings with the same attributes such as tags and scope. To allow such setting, use binding.apply():

export const serverTemplate = (binding: Binding) =>
  binding.inScope(BindingScope.SINGLETON).tag('server');

const serverBinding = new Binding<RestServer>('servers.RestServer1');
serverBinding.apply(serverTemplate);

Configure binding attributes for a class

Classes can be discovered and bound to the application context during boot. In addition to conventions, it's often desirable to allow certain binding attributes, such as scope and tags, to be specified as metadata for the class. When the class is bound, these attributes are honored to create a binding. You can use @bind decorator to configure how to bind a class.

import {bind, BindingScope} from '@loopback/context';

// @bind() accepts scope and tags
@bind({
  scope: BindingScope.SINGLETON,
  tags: ['service'],
})
export class MyService {}

// @binding.provider is a shortcut for a provider class
@bind.provider({
  tags: {
    key: 'my-date-provider',
  },
})
export class MyDateProvider implements Provider<Date> {
  value() {
    return new Date();
  }
}

@bind({
  tags: ['controller', {name: 'my-controller'}],
})
export class MyController {}

// @bind() can take one or more binding template functions
@bind(binding => binding.tag('controller', {name: 'your-controller'})
export class YourController {}

Then a binding can be created by inspecting the class,

import {createBindingFromClass} from '@loopback/context';

const ctx = new Context();
const binding = createBindingFromClass(MyService);
ctx.add(binding);

Please note createBindingFromClass also accepts an optional options parameter of BindingFromClassOptions type with the following settings:

• key: Binding key, such as controllers.MyController

• type: Artifact type, such as server, controller, repository or service

• name: Artifact name, such as my-rest-server and my-controller, default to the name of the bound class

• namespace: Namespace for the binding key, such as servers and controllers. If key does not exist, its value is calculated as <namespace>.<name>.

• typeNamespaceMapping: Mapping artifact type to binding key namespaces, such as:

  {
    controller: 'controllers',
    repository: 'repositories'
  }

• defaultScope: Default scope if the binding does not have an explicit scope set. The scope from @bind of the bound class takes precedence.

{% include note.html content=" The @bind decorator only adds metadata to the class. It does NOT automatically bind the class to a context. To bind a class with @bind decoration, the following step needs to happen explicitly or implicitly (by a booter).

const binding = createBindingFromClass(AClassOrProviderWithBindDecoration);
ctx.add(binding);

The metadata added by @bind is NOT inspected/honored by toClass or toProvider. Be warned that the example below does NOT set up the binding per @bind decoration:

const binding = ctx.bind('my-key').toClass(MyService);
// The binding is NOT configured based on the `@bind` decoration on MyService.
// The scope is BindingScope.TRANSIENT (not BindingScope.SINGLETON).
// There is no tag named 'service' for the binding either.

" %}

Encoding value types in binding keys

String keys for bindings do not help enforce the value type. Consider the example from the previous section:

app.bind('hello').to('world');
console.log(app.getSync<string>('hello'));

The code obtaining the bound value is explicitly specifying the type of this value. Such solution is far from ideal:

1. Consumers have to know the exact name of the type that's associated with each binding key and also where to import it from.
2. Consumers must explicitly provide this type to the compiler when calling ctx.get in order to benefit from compile-type checks.
3. It's easy to accidentally provide a wrong type when retrieving the value and get a false sense of security.

The third point is important because the bugs can be subtle and difficult to spot.

Consider the following REST binding key:

export const HOST = 'rest.host';

The binding key does not provide any indication that undefined is a valid value for the HOST binding. Without that knowledge, one could write the following code and get it accepted by TypeScript compiler, only to learn at runtime that HOST may be also undefined and the code needs to find the server's host name using a different way.:

const resolve = promisify(dns.resolve);

const host = await ctx.get<string>(RestBindings.HOST);
const records = await resolve(host);
// etc.

To address this problem, LoopBack provides a templated wrapper class allowing binding keys to encode the value type too. The HOST binding described above can be defined as follows:

export const HOST = new BindingKey<string | undefined>('rest.host');

Context methods like .get() and .getSync() understand this wrapper and use the value type from the binding key to describe the type of the value they are returning themselves. This allows binding consumers to omit the expected value type when calling .get() and .getSync().

When we rewrite the failing snippet resolving HOST names to use the new API, the TypeScript compiler immediately tells us about the problem:

const host = await ctx.get(RestBindings.HOST);
const records = await resolve(host);
// Compiler complains:
// - cannot convert string | undefined to string
//  - cannot convert undefined to string

Binding events

A binding can emit changed events upon changes triggered by methods such as tag, inScope, to, and toClass.

The binding listener function signature is described as:

/**
 * Information for a binding event
 */
export type BindingEvent = {
  /**
   * Event type
   */
  type: string;
  /**
   * Source binding that emits the event
   */
  binding: Readonly<Binding<unknown>>;
  /**
   * Operation that triggers the event
   */
  operation: string;
};

/**
 * Event listeners for binding events
 */
export type BindingEventListener = (
  /**
   * Binding event
   */
  event: BindingEvent,
) => void;

Now we can register a binding listener to be triggered when tags are changed:

const bindingListener: BindingEventListener = ({binding, operation}) => {
  if (event === 'tag') {
    console.log('Binding tags for %s %j', binding.key, binding.tagMap);
  }
});

binding.on('changed', bindingListener);