xamarin Code Sharing Between Projects The Service Locator Pattern

Example

The Service Locator design pattern is very nearly dependency injection. Like the Bridge Pattern, this pattern can be used to reference platform-dependent code from a platform-independent context. Most interestingly, this pattern relies on the singleton pattern -- everything you put into the service locator will be a defacto singleton.

// Define a service locator class in your common project
public class ServiceLocator {
    // A dictionary to map common interfaces to native implementations
    private Dictionary<object, object> _services;

    // A static instance of our locator (this guy is a singleton) 
    private static ServiceLocator _instance;
    
    // A private constructor to enforce the singleton
    private ServiceLocator() {
        _services = new Dictionary<object, object>();
    }

    // A Singleton access method
    public static ServiceLocator GetInstance() {
        if(_instance == null) {
            _instance = new ServiceLocator();
        }

        return _instance;
    }

    // A method for native projects to register their native implementations against the common interfaces
    public static void Register(object type, object implementation) {
        _services?.Add(type, implementation);
    }

    // A method to get the implementation for a given interface
    public static T Resolve<T>() {
        try {
            return (T) _services[typeof(T)];
        } catch {
            throw new ApplicationException($"Failed to resolve type: {typeof(T).FullName}");
        }
    }


//For each native implementation, you must create an interface, and the native classes implementing that interface
public interface IA {
    int DoAThing();
}


public interface IB {
    bool IsMagnificent();
}


public class IosA : IA {
    public int DoAThing() {
        return 5;
    }
}


public class DroidA : IA {
    public int DoAThing() {
        return 42;
    }
}


// You get the idea... 


// Then in your native initialization, you have to register your classes to their interfaces like so:
public class MainActivity : Activity
{
    protected override void OnCreate(Bundle bundle)
    {
        base.OnCreate(bundle);
        SetContentView(Resource.Layout.activity_main);

        var locator = ServiceLocator.GetInstance();
        locator.Register(typeof(IA), new DroidA());
        locator.Register(typeof(IB), new DroidB());
    }
}


public partial class AppDelegate : UIApplicationDelegate
{
    UIWindow window;

    public override bool FinishedLaunching(UIApplication app, NSDictionary options)
    {
        window = new UIWindow(UIScreen.MainScreen.Bounds);
        window.RootViewController = new UIViewController();
        window.MakeKeyAndVisible();

        var locator = ServiceLocator.GetInstance();
        locator.Register(typeof(IA), new IosA());
        locator.Register(typeof(IB), new IosB());

        return true;
    }
}


// Finally, to use your native implementations from non-native code, do as follows:
public void SomeMethodUsingNativeCodeFromNonNativeContext() {
     // Some boring code here


     // Grabbing our native implementations for the current platform
     var locator = ServiceLocator.GetInstance();
     IA myIA = locator.Resolve<IA>();
     IB myIB = locator.Resolve<IB>();


    // Method goes on to use our fancy native classes
}