In this episode, we dive into how autowiring works in PHP using reflection. We start by looking at the usual approach of getting dependencies from a container, where you'd have to manually register classes or interfaces. But what if you want the container to just figure it out automatically? That's where autowiring with reflection comes in!
You'll see an example where we have a simple class, and we show how to grab it from the container the traditional way by registering it first. If it's not registered, you'd normally get an error. But once we add a reflection-based container (sometimes called a reflection delegate), the magic happens — the container can now automatically resolve and instantiate classes, even when they're not explicitly registered.
We go further by exploring constructor injection: If our class depends on another class (like View), autowiring handles all the messy work. When we request Example from the container, it inspects the constructor, sees what dependencies are needed, and creates them for us using PHP's reflection. That means no more manually wiring up each dependency — it just works!
By the end of the episode, you'll understand how adding a reflection container simplifies managing dependencies, making your life much easier, especially as your project grows and your controllers and services start relying on more and more classes. Autowiring is now set up and ready to make development smoother!