Tutorial

Factory Design Pattern in Java

Published on August 3, 2022
author

Pankaj

Factory Design Pattern in Java

Welcome to the Factory Design Pattern in Java tutorial. Factory Pattern is one of the Creational Design pattern and it’s widely used in JDK as well as frameworks like Spring and Struts.

Factory Design Pattern

factory design pattern, factory design pattern in java, factory pattern, factory method pattern, factory pattern example The factory design pattern is used when we have a superclass with multiple sub-classes and based on input, we need to return one of the sub-class. This pattern takes out the responsibility of the instantiation of a class from the client program to the factory class. Let’s first learn how to implement a factory design pattern in java and then we will look into factory pattern advantages. We will see some of the factory design pattern usage in JDK. Note that this pattern is also known as Factory Method Design Pattern.

Factory Design Pattern Super Class

Super class in factory design pattern can be an interface, abstract class or a normal java class. For our factory design pattern example, we have abstract super class with overridden toString() method for testing purpose.

package com.journaldev.design.model;

public abstract class Computer {
	
	public abstract String getRAM();
	public abstract String getHDD();
	public abstract String getCPU();
	
	@Override
	public String toString(){
		return "RAM= "+this.getRAM()+", HDD="+this.getHDD()+", CPU="+this.getCPU();
	}
}

Factory Design Pattern Sub Classes

Let’s say we have two sub-classes PC and Server with below implementation.

package com.journaldev.design.model;

public class PC extends Computer {

	private String ram;
	private String hdd;
	private String cpu;
	
	public PC(String ram, String hdd, String cpu){
		this.ram=ram;
		this.hdd=hdd;
		this.cpu=cpu;
	}
	@Override
	public String getRAM() {
		return this.ram;
	}

	@Override
	public String getHDD() {
		return this.hdd;
	}

	@Override
	public String getCPU() {
		return this.cpu;
	}

}

Notice that both the classes are extending Computer super class.

package com.journaldev.design.model;

public class Server extends Computer {

	private String ram;
	private String hdd;
	private String cpu;
	
	public Server(String ram, String hdd, String cpu){
		this.ram=ram;
		this.hdd=hdd;
		this.cpu=cpu;
	}
	@Override
	public String getRAM() {
		return this.ram;
	}

	@Override
	public String getHDD() {
		return this.hdd;
	}

	@Override
	public String getCPU() {
		return this.cpu;
	}

}

Factory Class

Now that we have super classes and sub-classes ready, we can write our factory class. Here is the basic implementation.

package com.journaldev.design.factory;

import com.journaldev.design.model.Computer;
import com.journaldev.design.model.PC;
import com.journaldev.design.model.Server;

public class ComputerFactory {

	public static Computer getComputer(String type, String ram, String hdd, String cpu){
		if("PC".equalsIgnoreCase(type)) return new PC(ram, hdd, cpu);
		else if("Server".equalsIgnoreCase(type)) return new Server(ram, hdd, cpu);
		
		return null;
	}
}

Some important points about Factory Design Pattern method are;

  1. We can keep Factory class Singleton or we can keep the method that returns the subclass as static.
  2. Notice that based on the input parameter, different subclass is created and returned. getComputer is the factory method.

factory pattern java, factory pattern, factory design pattern, factory pattern class diagram Here is a simple test client program that uses above factory design pattern implementation.

package com.journaldev.design.test;

import com.journaldev.design.factory.ComputerFactory;
import com.journaldev.design.model.Computer;

public class TestFactory {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		Computer pc = ComputerFactory.getComputer("pc","2 GB","500 GB","2.4 GHz");
		Computer server = ComputerFactory.getComputer("server","16 GB","1 TB","2.9 GHz");
		System.out.println("Factory PC Config::"+pc);
		System.out.println("Factory Server Config::"+server);
	}

}

Output of above program is:

Factory PC Config::RAM= 2 GB, HDD=500 GB, CPU=2.4 GHz
Factory Server Config::RAM= 16 GB, HDD=1 TB, CPU=2.9 GHz

Factory Design Pattern Advantages

  1. Factory design pattern provides approach to code for interface rather than implementation.
  2. Factory pattern removes the instantiation of actual implementation classes from client code. Factory pattern makes our code more robust, less coupled and easy to extend. For example, we can easily change PC class implementation because client program is unaware of this.
  3. Factory pattern provides abstraction between implementation and client classes through inheritance.

Factory Design Pattern Examples in JDK

  1. java.util.Calendar, ResourceBundle and NumberFormat getInstance() methods uses Factory pattern.
  2. valueOf() method in wrapper classes like Boolean, Integer etc.

Factory Design Pattern YouTube Video Tutorial

I recently uploaded a video on YouTube for Factory Design pattern, please check it out. Please like and share the video and subscribe to my YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1QU\_R4MQQc

You can download the example code from my GitHub Project.

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About the authors
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Pankaj

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JournalDev
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April 20, 2021

how to make ComputerFactory class getComputer generic because in future there could be 100 of implementation class so i need to write 100 if-else statements

- dhanraj

    JournalDev
    DigitalOcean Employee
    DigitalOcean Employee badge
    September 19, 2020

    I think the explanation in ‘Factory Design Pattern Advantages’ section is quite verbose. I can tell the advantage of this pattern is simply “reducing repeated codes to choose and instantiate an implementation with arguments you’re having, using the fact there is only one possible implementation of the interface for a combination of arguments or/and for the environment of the machine.” “provides approach to code for interface rather than implementation” and “provides abstraction between implementation and client classes through inheritance” are true, but I think they are just derived results from the reason why you apply this pattern I said above. So I think the first advantage in the section should be what I said above at least.

    - Chagndae Park

      JournalDev
      DigitalOcean Employee
      DigitalOcean Employee badge
      July 15, 2020

      Pankaj, You have a wide reach and your article make a huge impact on developers. I appreciate your work and dedication that you put to bring this in front of us all. Having said that I want to invite you to partner me in clearing the space and providing the correct Design patterns as they are and not as they occur to you, me or any other author. Lets stick to the original GOF definition. It defines Abstract factory pattern and Factory pattern. I want to point out that the example you have put is neither of that. In the factory pattern , the factory class has an abstract method to create the product and lets the sub classes to create the concrete product. What you have is a static method. also the examples you mentioned as being present in JDK as example of factory method is also not pure factory pattern. They are simply Static Factory methods. Those are not the part of GOF Creational pattern. I want you to edit your post so as Correct information reaches the readers.

      - Krishna Kumar

        JournalDev
        DigitalOcean Employee
        DigitalOcean Employee badge
        June 6, 2020

        Thanks a lot for the nice content for me!

        - Vladimir

          JournalDev
          DigitalOcean Employee
          DigitalOcean Employee badge
          January 20, 2020

          Thank you Pankaj for enlightening us with your clear and succinct answer.

          - Thomas Lee S

            JournalDev
            DigitalOcean Employee
            DigitalOcean Employee badge
            November 16, 2019

            > valueOf() method in wrapper classes like Boolean, Integer etc. Could you explain more about this?

            - Jiabin

              JournalDev
              DigitalOcean Employee
              DigitalOcean Employee badge
              November 10, 2019

              You said, if we don’t use factory design pattern, Client will be aware of all the instances of the Computer(such as PC, Server), there is no abstraction. Even with factory design pattern, client should be aware of all the instances of the Computer right, else how will the client pass that string(“pc”,“server”) depending on his requirement ?

              - Suhas Nayak

                JournalDev
                DigitalOcean Employee
                DigitalOcean Employee badge
                September 30, 2019

                It was explained good. Thank you

                - Balachandar

                  JournalDev
                  DigitalOcean Employee
                  DigitalOcean Employee badge
                  August 15, 2019

                  Very well descriptive article. Big Thanks !

                  - Vaibhav Gote

                    JournalDev
                    DigitalOcean Employee
                    DigitalOcean Employee badge
                    March 16, 2019

                    thank’s sir Nice article

                    - sadiqullah

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