Scala implicit type class dependency injection - scala

Question

I'd like some help sorting out this scenario. I have an Akka actor where I want to inject a dependency, in this case RemoteFetcher, which I would also like mock in my tests. Like so:
main/src/scala/mypackage/Services.scala
package mypackage
import RemoteFetcherFileSystem._
trait RemoteFetcher {
def fetch( path:String ): Future[Stream[String]]
}
class MyRemoteResourceActor extends Actor with ActorLogging {
def fetchRemote( path:String ) = implicitly[RemoteFetcher].fetch( path )
def receive = {
case FetchRemoteResource( path ) => fetchRemote( path ).map( _.foreach( sender ! _ ) )
}
}
For this to work I have an implicit object that I import into the file above. Would look something like this:
implicit object RemoteFetcherFileSystem extends RemoteFetcher {
def fetchRemote( path:String ) = Future[Stream[String]] { ... reading from file system ... }
}
Now in my tests I have TestActor from the akka-testkit. Here I want to instead import my mock dependency:
implicit object RemoteFetcherMock extends RemoteFetcher {
def fetchRemote( path:String ) = Future[Stream[String]] { ... mock implementation ... }
}
My problem is that to compile Services.scala I need to import the implicit object. But how do I go about to shadow/override this in my test-files. The reason I'm not using implicit arguments is that I want to avoid having to modify all my actors constructor arguments.
I when looking around and reading up on the type class dependency injection pattern and I get it to work according to the tutorials, but I don't get it to work when I want to test and override like in my example.

Answer 1

I'm not sure how to do it with implicits, but typically one could inject instead like so:
trait RemoteFetcherComponent {
def remoteFetcher: RemoteFetcher
trait RemoteFetcher {
def fetch(path: String): Future[Stream[String]]
}
}
trait RemoteFetcherFileSystemComponent extends RemoteFetcherComponent {
val remoteFetcher = RemoteFetcherFileSystem
object RemoteFetcherFileSystem extends RemoteFetcher {
def fetch(path: String): Future[Stream[String]] = ???
}
}
class MyRemoteResourceActor extends Actor with ActorLogging with RemoteFetcherFileSystemComponent {
def fetchRemote(path: String) = remoteFetcher.fetch(path)
def receive = {
case FetchRemoteResource(path) => fetchRemote(path).map( _.foreach(sender ! _))
}
}
val myRemoteResourceActor = new MyRemoteResourceActor()
And then a test value would be defined like so:
trait RemoteFetcherMockComponent extends RemoteFetcherComponent {
def remoteFetcher = RemoteFetcherMock
object RemoteFetcherMock extends RemoteFetcher {
def fetch(path: String): Future[Stream[String]] = ???
}
}
val myMockedResourceActor = new MyRemoteResourceActor with RemoteFetcherMockComponent {
override val remoteFetcher = super[RemoteFetcherMockComponent].remoteFetcher
}
The reason you are having an issue with implicits is because the way you're using it is no different from simply using def fetchRemote(path: String) = RemoteFetcherFileSystem.fetch(path). With the import, you've defined the implementation, rather than allowed it to be injected later.

Answer 2

You could also change the implicitly to an implicit parameter:
trait RemoteFetcher {
def fetch(path: String): Future[Stream[String]]
}
object RemoteFetcher {
implicit val fetcher = RemoteFetcherFileSystem
}
class MyRemoteResourceActor extends Actor with ActorLogging {
def fetchRemote(path: String)(implicit remoteFetcher: RemoteFetcher) = remoteFetcher.fetch(path)
def receive = {
case FetchRemoteResource(path) => fetchRemote(path).map( _.foreach(sender ! _))
}
}
Then you could override the implicit that is resolved in the companion object of RemoteFetcher by simply importing RemoteFetcherMock.
See this post for more information about implicit parameter resolution precedence rules.