Autofac Access the IoC container in .NET MAUI

Question

I wanted to configure Autofac for my .NET MAUI project which I was able to do, now the thing is I would like to access the IoC container so I can manually resolve dependencies if needed for setting up my navigation service and other such situations.

In my MauiProgram I have this:

builder.ConfigureContainer(new AutofacServiceProviderFactory(), RegisterServices);

And the registration:

private static void RegisterServices(ContainerBuilder builder)
{
   // I register my services here
}

Now how would I access the IContainer that I just built here, I have been trying to skim through documentation and it seems there is no direct way to do this.

Answer 1

So I decided to follow the answer by Travis, one of the developers at Autofac.

The first thing you need to do is create a custom AutofacServiceProvider, where you can get the builder as a static provider, with a method to RegisterServices

internal class ExtendedAutofacServiceProviderFactory : IServiceProviderFactory<ContainerBuilder>
{
    public ContainerBuilder CreateBuilder(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        var builder = new ContainerBuilder();
        MauiProgram.RegisterServices(builder);
        builder.Populate(services);
        return builder;
    }

    public IServiceProvider CreateServiceProvider(ContainerBuilder containerBuilder)
    {
        ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(containerBuilder);
        var container = containerBuilder.Build();
        ContainerProvider.Container = container;
        return new AutofacServiceProvider(container);
    }
}

Add a method to RegisterServices, I added it in the MauiProgram

internal static void RegisterServices(ContainerBuilder builder)
{
   //Register your services here
}

You also need a ContainerProvider and then use it

using IContainer = Autofac.IContainer;

internal static class ContainerProvider
{
    internal static IContainer Container { get; set; }
}

Then you can use this and Resolve whatever you need an example:

ContainerProvider.Container.Resolve<IYourService>();