What is the Service Locator pattern in software design?

What is the Service Locator pattern in software design?

The Service Locator pattern is a design pattern that provides a central registry for services, allowing clients to look up and use them without needing to know their concrete implementations.

How does it differ from Dependency Injection?

While both patterns aim to decouple components, Dependency Injection provides dependencies directly to a class, whereas Service Locator requires the class to request them from a central registry.

Can you give an example of when to use the Service Locator?

It's useful in scenarios where you have many services and want to avoid passing them through constructors or methods, especially in large applications.

What are the drawbacks of using the Service Locator pattern?

Drawbacks include making the code harder to test and understand, as it hides dependencies and can lead to service discovery issues.