Question

Is it a bad practice or code smell to use an IoC container while installing dependencies?

This is my composition root:

public void Install(IWindsorContainer container, IConfigurationStore store)
{
    Assembly modelAssembly = typeof(UserLoginModel).Assembly;
    Assembly controllerAssembly = typeof(HomeController).Assembly;

    container.Install(
        new MvcInfrastructureInstaller(modelAssembly, viewAssembly, controllerAssembly, applicationTitle, resourceAssemblyLocations),
        new MiniMembershipInstaller(),
        new ServiceInstaller(),
        new RepositoryInstaller(),
        new LibraryInstaller(),
        new AutoMapperProfileInstaller() // this installer needs to resolve dependencies such as repositories through the container itself, so it goes last.
    );
}

My AutoMapperProfileInstallerneeds to resolve a profile which contains dependencies in order to initialize the mapper

public class AutoMapperProfileInstaller : IWindsorInstaller
{
    public void Install(IWindsorContainer container, IConfigurationStore store)
    {
        Profile entityToViewModel = container.Resolve<EntityToViewModelProfile>();
        Profile[] profiles = new[] { entityToViewModel };

        Mapper.Initialize(config =>
        {
            config.ConstructServicesUsing(container.Resolve);

            foreach (Profile profile in profiles)
            {
                config.AddProfile(profile);
            }
        });
    }
}

This feels wrong on many levels, what would be a better way to initialize AutoMapper profiles?

Answer 1

The only thing wrong with that approach is that you manually specify the IWindowsInstaller implementations. Use reflection to find them and Activator.CreateInstance to instantiate the implementations.

It gives you a flexible configuration approach where each part/module in your system is responsible of it’s own registrations.

I would however create a new interface for the AutoMapper configuration IMapperConfiguration (Single Responsibility). Use reflection to scan the assemblies for those too.