Non-Singleton Services in AngularJS

AngularJS clearly states in its documentation that Services are Singletons:

AngularJS services are singletons

Counterintuitively, module.factory also returns a Singleton instance.

Given that there are plenty of use-cases for non-singleton services, what is the best way to implement the factory method to return instances of a Service, so that each time an ExampleService dependency is declared, it is satisfied by a different instance of ExampleService?

Solution 1:

I'm not entirely sure what use case you are trying to satisfy. But it is possible to have a factory return instances of an object. You should be able to modify this to suit your needs.

var ExampleApplication = angular.module('ExampleApplication', []);


ExampleApplication.factory('InstancedService', function(){

    function Instance(name, type){
        this.name = name;
        this.type = type;
    }

    return {
        Instance: Instance
    }

});


ExampleApplication.controller('InstanceController', function($scope, InstancedService){
       var instanceA = new InstancedService.Instance('A','string'),
           instanceB = new InstancedService.Instance('B','object');

           console.log(angular.equals(instanceA, instanceB));

});

JsFiddle

Updated

Consider the following request for non-singleton services. In which Brian Ford notes:

The idea that all services are singletons does not stop you from writing singleton factories that can instantiate new objects.

and his example of returning instances from factories:

myApp.factory('myService', function () {
  var MyThing = function () {};
  MyThing.prototype.foo = function () {};
  return {
    getInstance: function () {
      return new MyThing();
    }
  };
});

I would also argue his example is superior due to the fact that you do not have to use the new keyword in your controller. It is encapsulated within the getInstance method of the service.

Solution 2:

I don't think we should ever have a factory return a newable function as this begins to break down dependency injection and the library will behave awkwardly, especially for third parties. In short, I am not sure there are any legitimate use cases for non-singleton sevices.

A better way to accomplish the same thing is to use the factory as an API to return a collection of objects with getter and setter methods attached to them. Here is some pseudo-code showing how using that kind of service might work:

.controller( 'MainCtrl', function ( $scope, widgetService ) {
  $scope.onSearchFormSubmission = function () {
    widgetService.findById( $scope.searchById ).then(function ( widget ) {
      // this is a returned object, complete with all the getter/setters
      $scope.widget = widget;
    });
  };

  $scope.onWidgetSave = function () {
    // this method persists the widget object
    $scope.widget.$save();
  };
});

This is just pseudo-code for looking up a widget by ID and then being able to save changes made to the record.

Here's some pseudo-code for the service:

.factory( 'widgetService', function ( $http ) {

  function Widget( json ) {
    angular.extend( this, json );
  }

  Widget.prototype = {
    $save: function () {
      // TODO: strip irrelevant fields
      var scrubbedObject = //...
      return $http.put( '/widgets/'+this.id, scrubbedObject );
    }
  };

  function getWidgetById ( id ) {
    return $http( '/widgets/'+id ).then(function ( json ) {
      return new Widget( json );
    });
  }


  // the public widget API
  return {
    // ...
    findById: getWidgetById
    // ...
  };
});

Though not included in this example, these kinds of flexible services could also easily manage state.

I don't have time right now, but if it will be helpful I can put together a simple Plunker later to demonstrate.

Solution 3:

Another way is to copy service object with angular.extend().

app.factory('Person', function(){
  return {
    greet: function() { return "Hello, I'm " + this.name; },
    copy: function(name) { return angular.extend({name: name}, this); }
  };
});

and then, for example, in your controller

app.controller('MainCtrl', function ($scope, Person) {
  michael = Person.copy('Michael');
  peter = Person.copy('Peter');

  michael.greet(); // Hello I'm Michael
  peter.greet(); // Hello I'm Peter
});

Here is a plunk.

Solution 4:

I know this post has already been answered but I still think there would be some legitimate scenarios that you need to have non-singleton service. Let's say there are some reusable business logic which can be shared between several controllers. In this scenario the best place to put the logic would be a service, but what if we need to keep some state in our reusable logic? Then we need non-singleton service so can be shared across different controllers in app. This is how I would implement these services:

angular.module('app', [])
    .factory('nonSingletonService', function(){

        var instance = function (name, type){
            this.name = name;
            this.type = type;
            return this;
        }

        return instance;
    })
    .controller('myController', ['$scope', 'nonSingletonService', function($scope, nonSingletonService){
       var instanceA = new nonSingletonService('A','string');
       var instanceB = new nonSingletonService('B','object');

       console.log(angular.equals(instanceA, instanceB));

    }]);

Solution 5:

Here's my example of a non singleton service, It's from a ORM im working on. In the example I show a Base Model (ModelFactory) which I want services('users','documents') to inherit and potential extend.

In my ORM ModelFactory injects other services to provide extra functionality(query,persistence,schema mapping) which is sandboxed using the module system.

In the example both user and document service have the same functionality but have their own independent scopes.

/*
    A class which which we want to have multiple instances of, 
    it has two attrs schema, and classname
 */
var ModelFactory;

ModelFactory = function($injector) {
  this.schema = {};
  this.className = "";
};

Model.prototype.klass = function() {
  return {
    className: this.className,
    schema: this.schema
  };
};

Model.prototype.register = function(className, schema) {
  this.className = className;
  this.schema = schema;
};

angular.module('model', []).factory('ModelFactory', [
  '$injector', function($injector) {
    return function() {
      return $injector.instantiate(ModelFactory);
    };
  }
]);


/*
    Creating multiple instances of ModelFactory
 */

angular.module('models', []).service('userService', [
  'ModelFactory', function(modelFactory) {
    var instance;
    instance = new modelFactory();
    instance.register("User", {
      name: 'String',
      username: 'String',
      password: 'String',
      email: 'String'
    });
    return instance;
  }
]).service('documentService', [
  'ModelFactory', function(modelFactory) {
    var instance;
    instance = new modelFactory();
    instance.register("Document", {
      name: 'String',
      format: 'String',
      fileSize: 'String'
    });
    return instance;
  }
]);


/*
    Example Usage
 */

angular.module('controllers', []).controller('exampleController', [
  '$scope', 'userService', 'documentService', function($scope, userService, documentService) {
    userService.klass();

    /*
        returns 
        {
            className: "User"
            schema: {
                name : 'String'
                username : 'String'
                password: 'String'
                email: 'String'     
            }
        }
     */
    return documentService.klass();

    /*
        returns 
        {
            className: "User"
            schema: {
                name : 'String'
                format : 'String'
                formatileSize: 'String' 
            }
        }
     */
  }
]);