inject() Migration

In Angular v14, inject() function was introduced as a new way to inject dependencies into Angular components, directives, services, and other classes. This new function is more flexible and provides a better way to inject dependencies compared to the previous way of using constructor dependency injection.

How it works?

The moment you run the schematics, it will look for all the classes that have dependencies injected in the constructor and convert them to use the inject() function.

• It will keep the same order of the dependencies.
• It will keep the same type of the dependencies.
• It will keep the same visibility of the dependencies.
• It will keep the same decorators (converted into options) of the dependencies.
• It will use the correct way of injecting the dependencies when injecting generic types.
• It will skip constructors that have no dependencies.
• It will cleanup empty constructors.
• It will add ‘this’ keyword to the dependencies that are not using it inside the constructor body.
• It will add the ‘inject’ import statement to the file if it’s not already imported.

Example:

Before running the schematics:

import { Attribute, Component } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';
import { MyService2 } from './my-service2';
import { MyService3 } from './my-service3';
import { MyService4 } from './my-service4';
import { MyService5 } from './my-service5';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  constructor(
    private myService: MyService,
    private elRef: ElementRef<HtmlImageElement>,
    private tplRef: TemplateRef<any>,
    private readonly viewContainerRef: ViewContainerRef,
    service2: MyService2,
    @Inject('my-service') private service: MyService,
    @Inject(MyService4) private service4: MyService4,
    @Optional() @Inject('my-service2') private service5: MyService5,
    @Self() @Optional() private service6: MyService6,
    @Optional() @Attribute('my-attr') private myAttr: string,
  ) {
    myService.doSomething();

    this.service2.doSomethingElse();

    service2.doSomething();

    someList.forEach(() => {
      // nested scope
      myService.doSomething();
    });

    // use service in a function call
    someFunction(service2).test(myService);
  }
}

After running the schematics:

// will import the `inject` method
import { Component, inject } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';
import { MyService2 } from './my-service2';
import { MyService3 } from './my-service3';
import { MyService4 } from './my-service4';
import { MyService5 } from './my-service5';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  // will keep the private keyword
  private myService = inject(MyService);

  // will pass the Generic type to the inject function as a type argument
  private elRef = inject<ElementRef<HtmlImageElement>>(
    ElementRef<HtmlImageElement>,
  );

  private tplRef = inject<TemplateRef<any>>(TemplateRef<any>);

  // will keep the readonly keyword
  private readonly viewContainerRef = inject(ViewContainerRef);

  // will keep the string token but use 'as any' to avoid type errors
  private service = inject<MyService>(
    'my-service' as any /* TODO(inject-migration): Please check if the type is correct */,
  );

  // will simplify the inject function by passing the class type as a type argument
  private service4 = inject(MyService4);

  // will keep using the string token but use 'as any' to avoid type errors
  private service5 = inject<MyService5>(
    'my-service2' as any /* TODO(inject-migration): Please check if the type is correct */,
    { optional: true },
  );

  // will keep the decorators and the order
  private service6 = inject(MyService6, { self: true, optional: true });

  // will convert the attribute to a string token using HostAttributeToken
  myAttr = inject<string>(new HostAttributeToken('my-attr'), {
    optional: true,
  });

  constructor() {
    // will inject inside the constructor body when no scope is used
    const service2 = inject(MyService2);

    this.myService.doSomething();

    service2.doSomethingElse();

    service2.doSomething();

    someList.forEach(() => {
      // nested scope
      this.myService.doSomething();
    });

    // use service in a function call
    someFunction(service2).test(this.myService);
  }
}

Options

• --project: Specifies the name of the project.
• --path: Specifies the path to the file to be migrated.
• --includeReadonlyByDefault: Specifies whether to include the readonly keyword by default for the injections. Default is false.
• --useESPrivateFieldNotation: Specifies whether to replace TS private modifier with ES #private field notation. Default is false.

Include readonly by default

By default, the migration will not add the readonly keyword to the injected dependencies. If you want to add the readonly keyword to the injected dependencies you can set the --includeReadonlyByDefault option to true.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  constructor(private myService: MyService) {}
}

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  // will add the readonly keyword if the option is set to true
  private readonly myService = inject(MyService);
}

Use ES private field notation

By default, the migration will keep the private keyword to the injected dependencies. If you want to replace TS private modifier with ES #private field notation to the injected dependencies you can set the --useESPrivateFieldNotation option to true.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  constructor(private myService: MyService) {}
}

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { MyService } from './my-service';

@Component()
export class AppComponent {
  // will replace 'private' modifier with ES '#private' field notation if the option is set to true
  readonly #myService = inject(MyService);
}

Usage

In order to run the schematics for all the project in the app you have to run the following script:

ng g ngxtension:convert-di-to-inject

If you want to specify the project name you can pass the --project param.

ng g ngxtension:convert-di-to-inject --project=<project-name>

If you want to run the schematic for a specific component or directive you can pass the --path param.

ng g ngxtension:convert-di-to-inject --path=<path-to-ts-file>

Usage with Nx

To use the schematics on a Nx monorepo you just swap ng with nx

Example:

nx g ngxtension:convert-di-to-inject --project=<project-name>