Question

When using Ninjects ConstructorArgument you can specify the exact value to inject to specific parameters. Why can’t this value be null, or how can I make it work? Maybe it’s not something you’d like to do, but I want to use it in my unit tests.. Example:

public class Ninja
{
    private readonly IWeapon _weapon;
    public Ninja(IWeapon weapon)
    {
        _weapon = weapon;
    }
}

public void SomeFunction()
{
    var kernel = new StandardKernel();
    var ninja = kernel.Get<Ninja>(new ConstructorArgument("weapon", null));
}

Answer 1

Looking at the source (and the stack trace I got by reproing which you omitted :P)

This is because it’s binding to a different overload of the ConstructorArgument ctor than the normal usage (i.e., where you’re passing a Value Type or a non-null Reference Type) does.

The workaround is to cast the null to Object:-

var ninja = kernel.Get<Ninja>( new ConstructorArgument( "weapon", (object)null ) );

Ninject 2 source:

public class ConstructorArgument : Parameter
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="ConstructorArgument"/> class.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="name">The name of the argument to override.</param>
    /// <param name="value">The value to inject into the property.</param>
    public ConstructorArgument(string name, object value) : base(name, value, false) { }

    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="ConstructorArgument"/> class.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="name">The name of the argument to override.</param>
    /// <param name="valueCallback">The callback to invoke to get the value that should be injected.</param>
    public ConstructorArgument(string name, Func<IContext, object> valueCallback) : base(name, valueCallback, false) { }
}

Repro:

public class ReproAndResolution
{
    public interface IWeapon
    {
    }

    public class Ninja
    {
        private readonly IWeapon _weapon;
        public Ninja( IWeapon weapon )
        {
            _weapon = weapon;
        }
    }

    [Fact]
    public void TestMethod()
    {
        var kernel = new StandardKernel();
        var ninja = kernel.Get<Ninja>( new ConstructorArgument( "weapon", (object)null ) );
    }
}

Lesson? You’d be crazy not to download the latest source and look at it. Great comments, nice clean codebase. Thanks again to @Ian Davis for that tip/prodding!