The factory pattern is a creational design pattern used in software development to encapsulate the processes involved in the creation of objects.
The creation of an object often requires complex processes not appropriate to include within a composing object. The object’s creation may lead to a significant duplication of code, may require information not accessible to the composing object, may not provide a sufficient level of abstraction, or may otherwise not be part of the composing object’s concerns.
Use the factory pattern when:
- The creation of the object precludes reuse without significantly duplicating code.
- The creation of the object requires access to information or resources not appropriate to contain within the composing object.
- The lifetime management of created objects needs to be centralised to ensure consistent behavior.
In simple words, if we have a super class and n sub-classes, and based on data provided, we have to return the object of one of the sub-classes, we use a factory pattern.
Let’s take an example to understand this pattern.
Example: Let’s suppose an application asks for entering the name and sex of a person. If the sex is Male (M), it displays welcome message saying Hello Mr. <Name> and if the sex is Female (F), it displays message saying Hello Ms <Name>