Circular dependency

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In software engineering, a circular dependency (or cyclic dependency) is a relation between two or more modules which either directly or indirectly depend on each other to function properly. Such modules are also known as mutually recursive.

Circular dependencies are natural in many domain models where certain objects of the same domain depend on each other.^[1] However, in software design, circular dependencies between larger software modules are considered an anti-pattern because of their negative effects.^[1] Despite this, such circular (or cyclic) dependencies have been found to be widespread among the source files of real-world software.^[2] Mutually recursive modules are, however, somewhat common in functional programming, where inductive and recursive definitions are often encouraged.

Circular dependencies can cause many unwanted effects in software programs. Most problematic from a software design point of view is the tight coupling of the mutually dependent modules which reduces or makes impossible the separate re-use of a single module.

Circular dependencies can cause a domino effect when a small local change in one module spreads into other modules and has unwanted global effects (program errors, compile errors). Circular dependencies can also result in infinite recursions or other unexpected failures.

Circular dependencies may also cause memory leaks by preventing certain automatic garbage collectors (those that use reference counting) from deallocating unused objects.

In very large software designs, software engineers may lose the context and inadvertently introduce circular dependencies. There are tools to analyze software and find unwanted circular dependencies.^[3]

Circular dependencies can be introduced when implementing callback functionality. This can be avoided by applying design patterns like the observer pattern.

• Acyclic dependencies principle
• Dependency hell