Question

With StructureMap one can do a resolution and force the container to use specific dependency instance provided at the time of resolution like so:

ObjectFactory.With<ISomeDependency>(someDepedencyInstance).GetInstance<IServiceType>()

Provided instance will be used in whole resolution chain, that is not only as a direct dependency of IServiceType implementation but also as a dependency of any direct and indirect dependencies of IServiceType implementation.

How do I do something like that in Castle Windsor?

I know I can provide a direct dependency with an overload of IWindsorContainer.Resolve<>(), but I need to provide this dependency to something deeper.

Answer 1

You can register an instance as the implementation of a given component like this:

container.Register(Component
    .For<ISomeDependency>()
    .Instance(someDependencyInstance));

This means that everytime you resolve anything and ISomeDependency is part of the resolved object graph, the someDependencyInstance instance will be used.

It that what you want, or did I misunderstand the question?

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Based on additional information, here’s a new attempt at answering the question.

You should be able to use container hierarchies for this. If a Windsor container can’t resolve a type, it’ll ask its parent. This means that you can create a child container that contains only the override and then ask that container to resolve the type for you.

Here’s an example:

var container = new WindsorContainer();
container.Register(Component
    .For<ISomeDependency>()
    .ImplementedBy<SomeDependency>());
container.Register(Component
    .For<IService>()
    .ImplementedBy<Service>());

var childContainer = new WindsorContainer();
childContainer.Register(Component
    .For<ISomeDependency>()
    .ImplementedBy<SomeOtherDependency>());

childContainer.Parent = container;

var service = childContainer.Resolve<IService>();

The resolved service will contain an instance of SomeOtherDependency and not SomeDependency.

Notice how childContainer only overrides the registration of ISomeDependency. All other registrations are used from the parent.