When would you use the Common Service Locator?

c# dependency-injection inversion-of-control service-locator common-service-locator
ajma picture ajma · Apr 9, 2009 · Viewed 15k times · Source

I've been looking at the Common Service Locator as a way of abstracting my IoC container but I've been noticing that some people are strongly against this type of this.

Do people recommend never using it? Always using it? or sometimes using it? If sometimes, then in what situations would you use it and what situations would you not use it.

Answer

Ian Ringrose picture Ian Ringrose · Aug 13, 2009

Imagine you are writing library code to be used by 3rd party developers. Your code needs to be able to create service objects that these developers provide. However you don’t know which IoC container each of your callers will be using.

The Common Service Locator lets you cope with the above without forcing a given IoC on your users.

Within your library itself you may wish to register your own classes in the IoC, now it gets a lot harder as you need to choose a IoC for your own use that will not get in the way of your callers.

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