Register and retrieve utilities

Register and retrieve utilities#

This section of the documentation describes how to register and retrieve utilities.

Register utilities by name and type#

You can register a utility using config.registerUtility by using its specific name and type arguments.

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'url',
  type: 'validator',
  method: () => 'this is a simple validator utility',
});

For utilities of the same type, you can register different name utilities.

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'url',
  type: 'validator',
  method: () => 'this is a simple URL validator utility',
});

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'email',
  type: 'validator',
  method: () => 'this is a simple email validator utility',
});

However, if you register two utilities under the same name, then the latter will override the former. Thus you can override existing utilities in your add-ons.

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'url',
  type: 'validator',
  method: () => 'this is a simple URL validator utility',
});

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'url',
  type: 'validator',
  method: () => 'this registered URL validator utility is the last defined, and therefore overrides all previous utilities with the same `name`',
});

Register utilities using a dependencies object#

It is possible to register utilities using a dependencies object. This is useful to further specify the utility.

config.registerUtility({
  name: 'email',
  type: 'validator',
  dependencies: { fieldType: 'email' },
  method: () => 'this is an email validator utility with dependencies for email',
});

Retrieve a specific utility#

You can retrieve one specific utility using config.getUtility, given the name and type.

config.getUtility({ name: 'url', type: 'validator' }).method()

You can do the same using a dependencies object.

config.getUtility({
  name: 'email',
  dependencies: { fieldType: 'string' },
  type: 'validator',
}).method()

Retrieve groups of utilities#

You can retrieve all utilities registered under the same type.

config.getUtilities({ type: 'validator' })

You can do the same using a dependencies object.

config.getUtilities({
  type: 'validator',
  dependencies: { fieldType: 'string' },
}).length

This is useful when building pluggable systems, so you can query all the utilities present in the registry. For example, retrieve all validator utilities with the fieldType of string.

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