Creating a new instance of an object each time method is called

Question

Messenger.Default.Register<OpenWindowMessage>(this, message =>
{
    var adventurerWindowVM = SimpleIoc.Default.GetInstance<AdventurerViewModel>();
    adventurerWindowVM.Adv = message.Argument;
    var adventurerWindow = new AdventurerView() 
    {
        DataContext = adventurerWindowVM
    };
    adventurerWindow.Show();
});

This code is fairly simple; it just opens a new window and sets the DataContext of the new window. The problem I'm having is that if I execute this twice, the content of the first instance will be overwritten and be set to that of the second since adventurerWindowVM is the DataContext of both windows and it is overwritten each time this code is called. I'm looking for a way to prevent this; I'd like to be able to open multiple windows using this message and have each of them be unique, but thus far I haven't figured out a way to do so. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for the vague title; I was unsure of what to name this question. (Also, I know that this isn't a method. What would this block of code be called?)

Update: I'm using MVVM Light and my code is based off of an example somebody provided for me in this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16994523/1667020

Here is some code from my ViewModelLocator.cs

public ViewModelLocator()
{
    _main = new MainViewModel();

    ServiceLocator.SetLocatorProvider(() => SimpleIoc.Default);
    SimpleIoc.Default.Register<GameViewModel>();
    SimpleIoc.Default.Register<AdventurerViewModel>();
}

Answer 1

Having given the other answer, I guess I can say the IoC container used here is just SimpleIoC from MvvmLight and to get a new instance of the VM on every GetInstance(...) all you need to do is pass in a unique key every time when trying to resolve an instance of the VM.

So you can switch

var adventurerWindowVM = SimpleIoc.Default.GetInstance<AdventurerViewModel>();

to

var adventurerWindowVM = SimpleIoc.Default.GetInstance<AdventurerViewModel>(System.Guid.NewGuid().ToString());

However as mentioned by the author of MVVMLight Here these VM's will get cached and we need to get rid of them when no longer needed. In your case probably when the Window is closed.

Thus I'd have that entire lambda something like:

Messenger.Default.Register<OpenWindowMessage>(this, message =>
{
    var uniqueKey = System.Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
    var adventurerWindowVM = SimpleIoc.Default.GetInstance<AdventurerViewModel>(uniqueKey);
    adventurerWindowVM.Adv = message.Argument;
    var adventurerWindow = new AdventurerView() 
    {
        DataContext = adventurerWindowVM
    };
    adventurerWindow.Closed += (sender, args) => SimpleIoc.Default.Unregister(uniqueKey);
    adventurerWindow.Show();
});

Note:

While this is somewhat longer 3 lines compared to just creating a new VM yourself with (new AdventurerViewModel()) I still favor this because if you use an IoC container to manage LifeTime of your VM's, then have it manage them completely. Don't really like mix-n-match when not needed. Rather keep the IoC Container doing what it's meant to do.

If you need more control over VM injection and Life-time management look at more sophisticated Ioc controllers such as Unity. SimpleIoC was just meant to be a simple get your feet "wet" in IoC kind of container and it does a very good job in that regard.

Answer 2

I think you are trying to use the same instance of your ViewModel with multiple views. So the views will obviously overwrite each others viewmodel contents.

What if you do this;

        Messenger.Default.Register<OpenWindowMessage>(this, message =>
    {
        var adventurerWindowVM = new AdventurerViewModel();
        adventurerWindowVM.Adv = message.Argument;
        var adventurerWindow = new AdventurerView() 
        {
            DataContext = adventurerWindowVM
        };
        adventurerWindow.Show();
    });