The Factory Pattern is an OOP design pattern where a client requests one object to create an instance of another object for it. The actual object is normally hidden behind an interface to allow for loose coupling, but the factory knows how to produce the correct object. Let’s consider for example a client that needs a product.

The Product is an interface representing a product. The client doesn’t know what sort of product it is, nor should it care. When a product is needed the client can call a method on a ProductFactory object and tell it what sort of product to product. Internally, the ProductFactory parses the arguments and creates an instance of a usually private class the implements the Product interface. The new object is returned to the caller.

In our example, we will have a Cook that is produced by a CookFactory. The client will specify the kind of cook it wants and the CookFactory will produce the correct instance of Cook. The client will never actually know what sort of Cook it is getting, but that should not be of any concern to the client anyway.

/**
 * A Cook interface that is implemented by private classes in the factory
 */
interface Cook {
    val name : String

    fun cook()
}

We can’t directly create a cook because it’s an interface. So to get an instance of a Cook, we need a class that implements this interface. Our CookFactory singleton provides the necessary classes.

/**
 * A singleton class that produces cooks
 */
object CookFactory {
    enum class CookType {BOB, JIMMY}

    /**
     * Called by clients to get a Cook based on the CookType
     */
    fun getCookInstance(type : CookType) : Cook{
        return when (type) {
            CookType.BOB -> Bob()
            CookType.JIMMY -> Jimmy()
        }
    }

    /**
     * Bob is a Cook that is private to the Factory. Only the Factory can
     * create Bob
     */
    private class Bob : Cook {
        override val name: String
            get() = "Bob"

        override fun cook() {
            println("Bob is cooking the Longest Chard Burger\n")
        }
    }

    /**
     * Jimmy is a Cook that is private to the Factory. Only the Factory can
     * create Jimmy
     */
    private class Jimmy : Cook {
        override val name: String
            get() = "Jimmy"

        override fun cook() {
            println("Jimmy is cooking a pizza\n")
        }

    }
    
    //Note that we can add other cooks here also!
}

The CookFactory only has one method: getCookInstance(). It accepts a value from the CookType enum class and returns an instance of Cook based on the input. Right now the cook is either Bob or Jimmy. It’s important to keep in mind that this is providing an abstraction point.

For example, let’s suppose we want to add more cooks as we maintain the program. We can easily tuck away new cooks inside of the CookFactory object or add additional arguments to the CookType enum or the getCookInstance() method. The clients of CookFactory still work as needed since they are working with the Cook interface rather than concrete Cook classes. Since the Factory Pattern is forcing us to program to an interface rather than a type, we are not only loosely coupled, but our code is highly flexible and maintainable.

Putting it Together

package ch4.factory

/**
 * A Cook interface that is implemented by private classes in the factory
 */
interface Cook {
    val name : String

    fun cook()
}

/**
 * A singleton class that produces cooks
 */
object CookFactory {
    enum class CookType {BOB, JIMMY}

    /**
     * Called by clients to get a Cook based on the CookType
     */
    fun getCookInstance(type : CookType) : Cook{
        return when (type) {
            CookType.BOB -> Bob()
            CookType.JIMMY -> Jimmy()
        }
    }

    /**
     * Bob is a Cook that is private to the Factory. Only the Factory can
     * create Bob
     */
    private class Bob : Cook {
        override val name: String
            get() = "Bob"

        override fun cook() {
            println("Bob is cooking the Longest Chard Burger\n")
        }
    }

    /**
     * Jimmy is a Cook that is private to the Factory. Only the Factory can
     * create Jimmy
     */
    private class Jimmy : Cook {
        override val name: String
            get() = "Jimmy"

        override fun cook() {
            println("Jimmy is cooking a pizza\n")
        }

    }

    //Note that we can add other cooks here also!
}

fun main(args : Array<String>){
    val bob = CookFactory.getCookInstance(CookFactory.CookType.BOB)
    val jimmy = CookFactory.getCookInstance(CookFactory.CookType.JIMMY)

    println("Testing Bob")
    bob.cook()

    println("Testing Jimmy")
    jimmy.cook()
}

Output

Testing Bob
Bob is cooking the Longest Chard Burger

Testing Jimmy
Jimmy is cooking a pizza