Accessing the DI container from anywhere - zend-framework

Question

I've implemented the Symfony2 Dependency Injection container in my Zend Framework project and it works fine in the MVC layer of my application. I've initialized the DIC in my bootstrap and can access it anywhere by calling:
Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getParam('bootstrap')->getDic()
The problem is that there are some parts of my application that do not utilize the Zend Framework application/MVC layer. My CLI tools for example. I could perfectly initialize a new DIC there but that would just be some copy paste work from the Bootstrap file which is asking for trouble down the road (DRY principles, etc)
Is it a better solution to make my DIC available in the Zend_Registry or as a singleton called by a static method DIC::getInstance() for example?
I know Registry and singletons are considered bad things but the DIC is such a high level part of the application that I will probably never run into the problems that make it a bad thing.
Is this a good solution or are there better ways of accomplishing a globally accessible DIC?

Answer 1

I achieved this in the past using Pimple (created by Fabien Potencier, owner of Symfony).
Pimple is a small Dependency Injection Container for PHP 5.3 that consists of just one file and one class (about 50 lines of code).
Here is how I coupled it with my ZF1 application:
Create a new Pimple container into your application's bootstrap
Declare all your services with proper dependencies
Access the DIC through your controllers or CLI tools
Access the services through the DIC
If your services are well declared (injecting dependencies through their constructors) you shouldn't have to access the DIC outside your controllers or CLI tools.
Use a base controller class to easily access the DIC through $this->container:
abstract class MyApp_Controller_Action extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
protected $container;
public function init()
{
$this->container = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()
->getParam('bootstrap')->getDic();
}
}
In order to use your DIC into your CLI tools:
Extend Zend_Application to create your CLI application
Override run() to prevent the MVC stack to bootstrap
When creating your CLI tool inject the DIC through its constructor
Use a base command class to easily access the DIC through $this->container:
abstract class MyApp_Command
{
protected $container;
public function __construct($container)
{
$this->container = $container;
}
}

Answer 2

To have access to your bootstrap ressources in your CLI file you can go and do a partial bootstrapping of your application
Instead of doing this (public/index.php) and bootstraping your whole application :
$application = new Zend_Application(
APPLICATION_ENV,
APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini'
);
$application->bootstrap()
->run();
You can do this and only bootstrap the required resouces :
$app = new Zend_Application(
APPLICATION_ENV,
APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini'
);
// Selectively bootstrap resources:
$app->bootstrap('db');
$app->bootstrap('log');
$app->bootstrap('autoload');
$app->bootstrap('config');
$app->bootstrap('di');
You have to make sure that you initialize them in the right order (you might need to have your DB loaded before the logging component if you have a DB writter for your logs for example).
From there, you can call parts of your bootstrap (for the DI component, you can call the $app->getBootstrap()->getContainer(). You have access to all methods available in your bootstrap.