Dagger 2 - Why am I getting circular reference error?

Question

I have an already working dagger implementation. My android Application class is the one which inits Dagger2 implementation.

However when I add a method that uses Activity argument, then I get the dagger error:

error: [ComponentProcessor:MiscError] dagger.internal.codegen.ComponentProcessor was unable to process this interface because not all of its dependencies could be resolved. Check for compilation errors or a circular dependency with generated code.

I have tested different variations and it only throws the error when I use the Activity param:

class MyApplication: Application() {

    ...

    fun addingThisFunWorks()

    fun addingThisFunReturningSomethingWorks(): ReturnClass

    fun addingThisFunWithParameterWorks(value: Int)

    fun addingThisFunThrowsDaggerError(activity: Activity)

}

Is it because Activity class depends on the Application class and that becomes circular somehow?

Answer 1

The problem is that Activity and Fragment references inside this class somehow is interpreted as a circular reference.

To fix it I need to create an "Intermediate" manager which has the function I need.

for example:

class MyApplication: Application() {

    ...

    fun addingThisFunWorks()

    fun addingThisFunReturningSomethingWorks(): ReturnClass

    fun addingThisFunWithParameterWorks(value: Int)

    fun returnMyManager(): MyManager

}

And have:

class MyManager {
    fun addingThisFunThrowsDaggerError(activity: Activity)
}