StaticInjectorError[HttpClent]: Function/class not supported

Question

I am trying to inject the HttpClientModule manually which runs outside independent(may be!) from app. Before static injector i was using reflective injector

Answer 1

StaticInjector is supposed to be a replacement for ReflectiveInjector that doesn't require Reflect API. getAnnotations is low-level hack and it likely won't work with StaticInjector in its current state. Also, getAnnotations is incompatible with AOT by design.

It's preferable to create an injector for a module the way it is supposed to be done by the framework, i.e. a module should be bootstrapped. Since there is no component to bootstrap, ngDoBootstrap hook should be specified.

By default, bootstrap process is asynchronous. If this is not a problem, initialization promise can be chained to get module instance.

An example:

@NgModule({
  imports: [BrowserModule, HttpClientModule]
})
export class MyHttpModule {
  static httpClient?: HttpClient;
  httpClient?: HttpClient;

  constructor(private _injector: Injector) {}

  ngDoBootstrap() {
    MyHttpModule.httpClient = this.httpClient = this._injector.get(HttpClient);
  }  
}

platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(MyHttpModule)
.then((myHttpModule: NgModuleRef<MyHttpModule>) => {
    // HttpClient instance is available here
    const httpClient = myHttpModule.instance.httpClient;
    httpClient.get('/foo', { responseType: 'text'}).subscribe();
})
.catch(err => console.error(err));

This approach is compatible with both JIT and AOT (which is good for using HttpClient apart from Angular because this lowers the footprint significantly) out of the box.

Otherwise custom synchronous bootstrap routine can be performed instead. This is possible because HttpClient doesn't require asynchronous initialization.

An example:

@NgModule({
  imports: [BrowserModule, HttpClientModule]
})
export class MyHttpModule {
  static httpClient?: HttpClient;

  constructor(public _injector: Injector) {
    MyHttpModule.httpClient = this._injector.get(HttpClient);
  }

  ngDoBootstrap() {}  
}

const platform = platformBrowserDynamic();
const compiler = platform.injector.get(CompilerFactory).createCompiler();
const moduleFactory = compiler.compileModuleSync(MyHttpModule);

platform.bootstrapModuleFactory(moduleFactory)
.catch(err => console.error(err));

const httpClient = MyHttpModule.httpClient;
httpClient.get('/foo').subscribe();

This will work in JIT, but AOT can't be efficiently handled by Angular CLI in the code above. The code involves the compiler, which isn't needed in AOT compilation mode (that's its purpose). In order to use AOT, it should be compiled with ngc compiler and a separate entry point that uses module factories should be created. Bootstrap routine becomes even simpler, because it doesn't involve compiler, something like:

...
import { platformBrowser } from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import { AppModuleNgFactory } from '<path to aot>/src/app/my-http-module.ngfactory';

const platform = platformBrowser();
platform.bootstrapModuleFactory(AppModuleNgFactory)
.catch(err => console.error(err));

const httpClient = MyHttpModule.httpClient;
httpClient.get('/foo').subscribe();