125

I'd like to inject a service into a class that is not a component.

For example:

Myservice

import {Injectable} from '@angular/core';
@Injectable()
export class myService {
  dosomething() {
    // implementation
  }
}

MyClass

import { myService } from './myService'
export class MyClass {
  constructor(private myservice:myService) {

  }
  test() {
     this.myservice.dosomething();
  }
}

I tried and it doesn't work. It seems like service need to be used in only component or service.

Is there a way to use a service in a normal class? or it's a bad practice to use a service in a normal class.

Thank you.

1
  • A possible clean way is to create a MyClassFactory() method (returning MyClass objects) within a regular @Injectable decorated class. Commented Aug 7, 2023 at 9:51

7 Answers 7

76

Injections only works with classes that are instantiated by Angulars dependency injection (DI).

  1. You need to
  • add @Injectable() to MyClass and
  • provide MyClass like providers: [MyClass] in a component or NgModule.

When you then inject MyClass somewhere, a MyService instance gets passed to MyClass when it is instantiated by DI (before it is injected the first time).

  1. An alternative approach is to configure a custom injector like

With the new static injector

constructor(private injector:Injector) { 
  let childInjector = Injector.create({ providers: [MyClass], parent: this.injector});

  let myClass : MyClass = childInjector.get(MyClass);
}

With the deprecated ReflectiveInjector

constructor(private injector:Injector) { 
  let resolvedProviders = ReflectiveInjector.resolve([MyClass]);
  let childInjector = ReflectiveInjector.fromResolvedProviders(resolvedProviders, this.injector);

  let myClass : MyClass = childInjector.get(MyClass);
}

This way myClass will be a MyClass instance, instantiated by Angulars DI, and myService will be injected to MyClass when instantiated.
See also Getting dependency from Injector manually inside a directive

  1. Yet another way is to create the instance yourself:
constructor(ms:myService)
let myClass = new MyClass(ms);
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11 Comments

I think injecting service to a standalone class is an anti-pattern.
Sure, but sometimes it can still make sense and it's always good to know what's possible
@TimothyPenz thanks for the edit. In this example the private isn't necessary, because injector isn't used outside the constructor, therefore no need to keep a reference in a field.
@Galdor if the class is an Angular service, then there shouldn't be a need to meddle with injectors in your code as shown in my answer, you just inject by configuring providers and listing constructor parameters. There are usually only rare edge cases where instances not managed by Angular need to inject something from Angular, like integration with libraries that are not built with Angular in mind or when application initialization order becomes tricky. If you need to pass injectors around in your normal Angular code, you're probably doing something poorly.
@Glador If a class needs something from an injector, it should probably be registered as a provider and be injected instead of instantiating with new. So none of my 3 answers should be needed except in certain circumstances mentioned in my previous comment.
|
34

Not a direct answer to the question, but if you're reading this SO for the reason I am this may help...

Let's say you're using ng2-translate and you really want your User.ts class to have it. You're immediate thought is to use DI to put it in, you are doing Angular after all. But that's kind of overthinking it, you can just pass it in your constructor, or make it a public variable you set from the component (where you presumably did DI it in).

e.g.:

import { TranslateService } from "ng2-translate";

export class User {
  public translateService: TranslateService; // will set from components.

  // a bunch of awesome User methods
}

then from some user-related component that injected TranslateService

addEmptyUser() {
  let emptyUser = new User("", "");
  emptyUser.translateService = this.translateService;
  this.users.push(emptyUser);
}

Hopefully this helps those out there like me who were about to write a lot of harder to maintain code because we're too clever sometimes =]

(NOTE: the reason you may want to set a variable instead of making it part of your constructor method is you could have cases where you don't need to use the service, so always being required to pass it in would mean introducing extra imports/code that are never really used)

2 Comments

and maybe make translateService a get / set where the get throws a meaningful error instead of a NullReference exception if you forgot to set it
Maybe it makes more sense to make translateService a required param in the class constructor? This pattern is more in line with DI pattern imho.
30

This is kind of (very) hacky, but I thought I'd share my solution as well. Note that this will only work with Singleton services (injected at app root, not component!), since they live as long as your application, and there's only ever one instance of them.

First, in your service:

@Injectable()
export class MyService {
    static instance: MyService;
    constructor() {
        MyService.instance = this;
    }

    doSomething() {
        console.log("something!");
    }
}

Then in any class:

export class MyClass {
    constructor() {
        MyService.instance.doSomething();
    }
}

This solution is good if you want to reduce code clutter and aren't using non-singleton services anyway.

5 Comments

But how do you use MyService in MyClass without any declaration in the constructor?
@AkhilV you just import the MyService as you would import any other class, then you can directly call the method as described.
interesting hack...
This way is good but there is only one issue. Angular won't instantiate the MyService unless it has been injected at least once. So if this service gonna be used only in classes it needs to be injected somewhere like AppComponent or AppModule.
This worked for me in angular 17. I could not find a place to initialise the solution with the service locator of @Julian
25

locator.service.ts

import {Injector} from "@angular/core";

export class ServiceLocator {
    static injector: Injector;
}

app.module.ts

@NgModule({ ... })

export class AppModule {
    constructor(private injector: Injector) {
        ServiceLocator.injector = injector;
    }
 }

poney.model.ts

export class Poney {

    id: number;
    name: string;
    color: 'black' | 'white' | 'brown';

    service: PoneyService = ServiceLocator.injector.get(PoneyService); // <--- HERE !!!

    // PoneyService is @injectable and registered in app.module.ts
}

5 Comments

Not sure what's the best practice for OP's scenario, but this answer seems so much simpler than the leading ones. Will moving the injector.get() call to the module work (assuming stateless service so several classes can "share" the same instance)?
I think that code would end up by all the poney instances sharing the same instance of poney service. What do you think?
Julien - that's an acceptable result (actually the preferred one) for my scenario - think of something like an input validator, user permissions handler or localization service - where you need the same functionality across the app but there's no need for a unique instance for each individual consumer of the service.
Having some trouble trying to get this to work in Jasmine tests. How to configure the test setup? ServiceLocator.injector keeps returning null, although I have injected the "PoneyService" into the TestBed?
@Julien can you add some explanation to why this answer works?
5

Since Angular 14 you can use the inject function. But it should only be called in the constructor.

import { MyService } from './my.service'
export class MyClass {
  private myService = inject(MyService);

  test() {
     this.myservice.dosomething();
  }
}

elsewhere

import { MyClass } from './myClass'
@component()
export class MyComponent {
  constructor() {
    const myClass = new MyClass();
  }
}

3 Comments

good one. MyClass need the import { inject } from '@angular/core';
yes but: I'd like to inject a service into a class that is not a component. Your answer uses the @component() decorator.
It was just an example inside component. You can instantiate the class example where Vahid injected the myService, any where you wish. class myOtherClass { new MyClass();
3

If your service methods are pure functions, a clean way to solve this is to have static members in your service.

your service

import {Injectable} from '@angular/core';
@Injectable()
export class myService{
  public static dosomething(){
    //implementation => doesn't use `this`
  }
}

your class

export class MyClass{
  test(){
     MyService.dosomething(); //no need to inject in constructor
  }
}

Comments

0

You can also make use of a factory like the MyClassFactory as follows:

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
@Injectable()
export class MyService {
  dosomething() {
    // implementation
  }
}
import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './MyService'

@Injectable()
export class MyClassFactory {
  constructor(private myService:MyService) { }

  createMyClass() {
    return new MyClass(this.myService)
  }
}
import { MyService } from './MyService'
export class MyClass {
  constructor(private myService:MyService) { }
  test() {
     this.myservice.dosomething();
  }
}

Comments

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