Why do I need a FactorySupplier? - java

In the project I'm working on (not my project, just working on it), there are many structures like this:
project.priv.logic.MyServiceImpl.java
project.priv.service.MyServiceFactoryImpl.java
project.pub.logic.MyServiceIF.java
project.pub.service.MyServiceFactoryIF.java
project.pub.service.MyServiceFactorySupplier.java
And the Service is called like this:
MyServiceFactorySupplier.getMyServiceFactory().getMyService()
I understand that a factory is used to hide the implementation of MyServiceImpl if the location or content of MyServiceImpl changes. But why is there another factory for my factory (the supplier)? I think the probability of my Factory and my FactorySupplier to change is roughly equal. Additionally I have not found one case, where the created factory is created dynamically (I think this would be the case in the Abstract Factory Pattern) but only returns MyServiceFactoryImpl.getInstance(). Is it common practice to implement a FactorySupplier? What are the benefits?

I can think of a couple of examples (some of the quite contrived) where this pattern may be useful. Generally, you have two or more implementations for your Services e.g.
one for production use / one for testing
one implementation for services accessing a database, another one for accessing a file base storage
different implementations for different locales (translations, formatting of dates and numbers etc)
one implementation for each type of database you want to access
In each of these examples, an initialization for your FactorySupplier is needed at startup of the application, e.g. the FactorySupplier is parametrized with the locale or the database type and produces the respective factories based in these parameters.
If I understand you correctly, you don't have any kind of this code in your application, and the FactorySupplier always returns the same kind of factory.
Maybe this was done to program for extensibility that was not needed yet, but IMHO this looks rather like guessing what the application might need at some time in the future than like a conscious architecture choice.

Suppose you have a hierarchy of classes implementing MyServiceIF.
Suppose you have a matching hierarchy of factory classes to create each of the instances in the original hierarchy.
In that case, MyServiceFactorySupplier could have a registry of available factories, and you might have a call to getMyServiceFactory(parameter), where the parameter determines which factory will be instantiated (and therefore an instance of which class would be created by the factory).
I don't know if that's the use case in your project, but it's a valid use case.
Here's a code sample of what I mean :
public class MyServiceImpl implements MyServiceIF
{
....
}
public class MyServiceImpl2 implements MyServiceIF
{
....
}
public class MyServiceFactoryImpl implements MyServiceFactoryIF
{
....
public MyServiceIF getMyService ()
{
return new MyServiceImpl ();
}
....
}
public class MyServiceFactoryImpl2 implements MyServiceFactoryIF
{
....
public MyServiceIF getMyService ()
{
return new MyServiceImpl2 ();
}
....
}
public class MyServiceFactorySupplier
{
....
public static MyServiceFactoryIF getMyServiceFactory()
{
return new MyServiceFactoryImpl (); // default factory
}
public static MyServiceFactoryIF getMyServiceFactory(String type)
{
Class serviceClass = _registry.get(type);
if (serviceClass != null) {
return serviceClass.newInstance ();
} else {
return getMyServiceFactory(); // default factory
}
}
....
}
I have a related hierarchy of classes that are instantiated by a hierarchy of factories. While I don't have a FactorySupplier class, I have in the base class of the factories hierarchy a static method BaseFactory.getInstance(parameter), which returns a factory instance that depends on the passed parameter.

Related

What is a good way of telling low level objects which factories to use?

I've been learning a lot about Design Patterns lately, specifically Dependency Injection. I'm pretty sure that abstract factorys are a good way of instantiating objects that have dependencies. However I'm not sure how to tell lower level objects what factories they are supposed to use.
Consider following simplified example:
I have a class MainProgram (I just made this to represent that there is other code in my program..)
At some point during runtime I want to instantiate a IGeneticAlgorithm with an abstract factory:
public class MainProgram{
private AbstractGeneticAlgorithm geneticAlgorithm;
private IGeneticAlgorithmFactory geneticAlgorithmFactory;
public MainProgram(IGeneticAlgorithmFactory geneticAlgorithmFactory){
this.geneticAlgorithmFactory = geneticAlgorithmFactory;
}
private void makeGeneticAlgorithm(){
geneticAlgorithm = geneticAlgorithmFactory.getInstance();
}
public static void main(String[] args){
MainProgram mainProgramm = new MainProgram(new FastGeneticAlgorithmFactory());
//...
}
}
public interface IGeneticAlgorithmFactory{
public IGeneticAlgorithm getInstance();
}
public class FastGeneticAlgorithmFactory implements IGeneticAlgorithmFactory{
public IGeneticAlgorithm getInstance(){
return new FastGeneticAlgorithm();
}
}
public abstract class AbstractGeneticAlgorithm{
private IIndividual individual;
private IIndividualFactory individualFactory;
private void makeIndividual(){
individual = individualFactory.getInstance();
}
//...
}
At some point during runtime I want to instantiate an IIndividual in my GeneticAlgorithm. The IIndividual can't be instantiated at startup. The need to be able to instantiate the IIndividual during runtime comes from the way Genetic Algorithms work, where basically after each Step of Selection-Recombination-Mutation new Individuals have to be instantiated. (For more information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm). I chose to give the AbstractGeneticAlgorithm here only one IIndividual to keep this example simple.
public class FastGeneticAlgorithm implements AbstractGeneticAlgorithm{
private IIndividual individual;
private IIndividualFactory individualFactory;
}
public interface IIndividualFactory{
public IIndividual getInstance();
}
public class SmallIndividualFactory implements IIndividualFactory{
public IIndividual getInstance(){
return new SmallIndividual();
}
//...
}
public interface IIndividual{
//...
}
public class SmallIndividual implements IIndividual{
//...
}
Making the SmallIndividualFactory a static variable in the FastGeneticAlgorithm doesn't seem to me like good practice. And passing the SmallIndividualFactory to Main, so that Main can pass it down to FastGeneticAlgorithm also doesn't seem right.
My question is how to solve this? Thank you.
When it comes to using Dependency Injection, the Abstract Factory pattern is often over-used. This doesn't mean that it's a bad pattern per se, but in many cases there are more suitable alternatives for the Abstract Factory pattern. This is described in detail in Dependency Injection Principles, Practices, and Patterns (paragraph 6.2) where is described that:
Abstract Factories should not be used to create short-lived, stateful dependencies, since a consumer of a dependency should be oblivious to its lifetime; from perspective of the consumer, there should conceptually be only one instance of a service.
Abstract Factories are often Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) violations, because their design often doesn't suit the consumer, while the DIP states: "the abstracts are owned by the upper/policy layers", meaning that consumer of the abstraction should dictate its shape and define the abstraction in a way that suits its needs the most. Letting the consumer depend on both a factory dependency and the dependency it produces complicates the consumer.
This means that:
Abstract Factories with a parameterless create method should be prevented, because it implies the dependency is short-lived and its lifetime is controlled by the consumer. Instead, Abstract Factories should be created for dependencies that conceptually require runtime data (provided by the consumer) to be created.
But even in case a factory method contains parameters, care must be taken to make sure that the Abstract Factory is really required. The Proxy pattern is often (but not always) better suited, because it allows the consumer to have a single dependency, instead of depending on both the factory and its product.
Dependency Injection promotes composition of classes in the start-up path of the application, a concept the book refers to as the Composition Root. The Composition Root is a location close to that application's entry point (your Main method) and it knows about every other module in the system.
Because the Composition Root takes a dependency on all other modules in the system, it typically makes little sense consume Abstract Factories within the Composition Root. For instance, in case you defined an IXFactory abstraction to produce IX dependencies, but the Composition Root is the sole consumer of the IXFactory abstraction, you are decoupling something that doesn't require decoupling: The Composition Root intrinsically knows about every other part of the system any way.
This seems to be the case with your IGeneticAlgorithmFactory abstraction. Its sole consumer seems to be your Composition Root. If this is true, this abstraction and its implementation can simply be removed and the code within its getInstance method can simply be moved into the MainProgram class (which functions as your Composition Root).
It's hard for me to understand whether or not your IIndividual implementations require a factory (it has been at least 14 years ago since I implemented a genetic algorithm at the University), but they seem more like runtime data rather than 'real' dependencies. So a factory might make sense here, although do verify whether their creation and implementation must be hidden behind an abstraction. I could imagine the application to be sufficiently loosely coupled when the FastGeneticAlgorithm creates SmallIndividual instances directly. This, however, is just a wild guess.
On top of that, best practice is to apply Constructor Injection. This prevents Temporal Coupling. Furthermore, refrain specifying the implementations dependencies in the defined abstractions, as your AbstractGeneticAlgorithm does. This makes the abstraction a Leaky Abstraction (which is a DIP violation). Instead, declare the dependencies by declaring them as constructor arguments on the implementation (FastGeneticAlgorithm in your case).
But even with the existence of the IIndividualFactory, your code can be simplified by following best practices as follows:
// Use interfaces rather than base classes. Prefer Composition over Inheritance.
public interface IGeneticAlgorithm { ... }
public interface IIndividual { ... }
public interface IIndividualFactory {
public IIndividual getInstance();
}
// Implementations
public class FastGeneticAlgorithm implements IGeneticAlgorithm {
private IIndividualFactory individualFactory;
// Use constructor injection to declare the implementation's dependencies
public FastGeneticAlgorithm(IIndividualFactory individualFactory) {
this.individualFactory = individualFactory;
}
}
public class SmallIndividual implements IIndividual { }
public class SmallIndividualFactory implements IIndividualFactory {
public IIndividual getInstance() {
return new SmallIndividual();
}
}
public static class Program {
public static void main(String[] args){
AbstractGeneticAlgorithm algoritm = CreateAlgorithm();
algoritm.makeIndividual();
}
private AbstractGeneticAlgorithm CreateAlgorithm() {
// Build complete object graph inside the Composition Root
return new FastGeneticAlgorithm(new SmallIndividualFactory());
}
}

Injection via Guice into an Immutables class

I'm using 2 common packages, Immutables and
Guice. The very first thing that happens at runtime is I load setting from environment and other sources into settings into a singleton, non-Immutable config class, let's call it MyConfig, that for example, exposes a public getSettingX() method.
MyConfig myConfig = MyConfig.intialize().create();
String settingX = myConfig.getSettingX();
I have one abstract Immutable class, call it AbstractImmutable. that at instantiation needs to set a field based on the myConfig.getSettingX().
#Value.Immutable
abstract class AbstractImmutable {
abstract String getSettingX(); // Ideally set
}
Now, typically I inject MyConfig into classes using Guice, and would liket to figure a way to do this for implementations of the AbstractImmutable class (to avoid manually having to inject the MyConfig class every time I build an object--whole reason using juice to begin with, to manage my DI). However, since the concrete Immutables classes are generated at compile, it doesn't to work with the usual Guice injection annotations.
There's indication on the Immutables site of using the builder package to annotate a static factory method, but I can't seem to figure how to add this to the abstract immutable class.
Anyone have any suggestions?
To my knowledge, there is no way to do this on the generated Immutables class itself (though there may be some funny stuff you could do with #InjectAnnotation), so you may be out of luck there.
Even though you are asking under the guise of Guice, what you are asking for reminds me of the pattern that AutoFactory uses, and should be similarly applicable. In essence, take advantage of the Factory Pattern by injecting into the factory and then the factory will create the Immutable object.
For example, specifically referring to your case,
#Value.Immutable
abstract class ValueObject {
MyConfig getMyConfig();
#Value.Derived
String getSettingX() {
getMyConfig().getSettingX();
}
String getAnotherProperty();
class ValueObjectFactory {
#Inject MyConfig myConfig;
ValueObject create(String anotherProperty) {
return ImmutableValueObject.builder()
.setMyConfig(this.myConfig)
.setAnotherProperty(anotherProperty)
.build();
}
}
}
Then, in the application code, you would inject the ValueObjectFactory directly and call create on it as
class SomeApplicationClass {
#Inject ValueObjectFactory factory;
void someMethod() {
ValueObject = factory.create("myString");
// ... do something with the ValueObject
}
}
Similarly, you could define your factory as a builder, but that will be a decision you will have to make based on the number of parameters you have.

CDI: Dynamical injection of a group of classes how to?

I need to dynamically Inject a variable group of classes in my application. The purpose is, as the application grows, only have to add more classes inheriting the same interface. This is easy to do with tradicional java as I just need to search for all classes in a package and perform a loop to instantiate them. I want to do it in CDI. For example:
public MyValidatorInterface {
public boolean validate();
}
#Named
MyValidator1 implements MyValidatorInterface
...
#Named
MyValidator2 implements MyValidatorInterface
...
Now the ugly non real java code just to get the idea of what I want to do:
public MyValidatorFactory {
for (String className: classNames) {
#Inject
MyValidatorInterface<className> myValidatorInstance;
myValidatorInstance.validate();
}
}
I want to loop over all implementations found in classNames list (all will be in the same package BTW) and Inject them dynamically so if next week I add a new validator, MyValidator3, I just have to code the new class and add it to the project. The loop in MyValidatorFactory will find it, inject it and execute the validate() method on the new class too.
I have read about dynamic injection but I can't find a way to loop over a group of class names and inject them just like I used to Instantiate them the old way.
Thanks
What you are describing is what Instance<T> does.
For your sample above, you would do:
`#Inject Instance<MyValidatorInterface> allInstances`
Now, allInstances variable contains all your beans which have the given Type (MyValidatorInterface). You can further narrow down the set by calling select(..) based on qualifiers and/or class of bean. This will again return an Instance but with only a subset of previously fitting beans. Finally, you call get() which retrieves the bean instance for you.
NOTE: if you call get() straight away (without select) in the above case, you will get an exception because you have two beans of given type and CDI cannot determine which one should be used. This is implied by rules of type-safe resolution.
What you most likely want to know is that Instance<T> also implements Iterable so that's how you get to iterate over the beans. You will want to do something like this:
#Inject
Instance<MyValidatorInterface> allInstances;
public void validateAll() {
Iterator<MyValidatorInterface> iterator = allInstances.iterator();
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
iterator.next().callYourValidationMethod();
}}
}

How can I override a method of an anonymous generic class?

I am working on GWT project with JDK7. It has two entryPoints (two clients) that are located in separate packages of the project. Clients share some code that is located in /common package, which is universal and accessible to both by having the following line in their respective xml-build files:
<source path='ui/common' />
Both clients have their own specific implementations of the Callback class which serves their running environments and performs various actions in case of failure or success. I have the following abstract class that implements AsyncCallback interface and then gets extended by its respective client.
public abstract class AbstractCallback<T> implements AsyncCallback<T> {
public void handleSuccess( T result ) {}
...
}
Here are the client's classes:
public class Client1Callback<T> extends AbstractCallback<T> {...}
and
public class Client2Callback<T> extends AbstractCallback<T> {...}
In the common package, that also contains these callback classes, I am working on implementing the service layer that serves both clients. Clients use the same back-end services, just handle the results differently. Based on the type of the client I want to build a corresponding instance of AbstractCallback child without duplicating anonymous class creation for each call. I am going to have many declarations that will look like the following:
AsyncCallback<MyVO> nextCallback = isClient1 ?
new Client1Callback<MyVO>("ABC") {
public void handleSuccess(MyVO result) {
doThatSameAction(result);
}
}
:
new Client2Callback<MyVO>("DEF") {
public void handleSuccess(MyVO result) {
doThatSameAction(result);
}
};
That will result in a very verbose code.
The intent (in pseudo-code) is to have the below instead:
AsyncCallback<MyVO> nextCallback = new CallbackTypeResolver.ACallback<MyVO>(clientType, "ABC"){
public void handleSuccess(MyVO result) {
doThatSameAction(result);
}
};
I was playing with the factory pattern to get the right child instance, but quickly realized that I am not able to override handleSuccess() method after the instance is created.
I think the solution may come from one of the two sources:
Different GWT way of dealing with custom Callback implementations, lets call it alternative existent solution.
Java generics/types juggling magic
I can miss something obvious, and would appreciate any advice.
I've read some articles here and on Oracle about types erasure for generics, so I understand that my question may have no direct answer.
Refactor out the handleSuccess behavior into its own class.
The handleSuccess behavior is a separate concern from what else is going on in the AsyncCallback classes; therefore, separate it out into a more useful form. See Why should I prefer composition over inheritance?
Essentially, by doing this refactoring, you are transforming an overridden method into injected behavior that you have more control over. Specifically, you would have instead:
public interface SuccessHandler<T> {
public void handleSuccess(T result);
}
Your callback would look something like this:
public abstract class AbstractCallback<T> implements AsyncCallback<T> {
private final SuccessHandler<T> handler; // Inject this in the constructor
// etc.
// not abstract anymore
public void handleSuccess( T result ) {
handler.handleSuccess(result);
}
}
Then your pseudocode callback creation statement would be something like:
AsyncCallback<MyVO> nextCallback = new CallbackTypeResolver.ACallback<MyVO>(
clientType,
"ABC",
new SuccessHandler<MyVO>() {
public void handleSuccess(MyVO result) {
doThatSameMethod(result);
}
});
The implementations of SuccessHandler don't have to be anonymous, they can be top level classes or even inner classes based on your needs. There's a lot more power you can do once you're using this injection based framework, including creating these handlers with automatically injected dependencies using Gin and Guice Providers. (Gin is a project that integrates Guice, a dependency injection framework, with GWT).

Guice - how to implement a factory that returns different implementations

Lets say I have a service called Guice service and here is its constructor
public GuiceService(IPayment payment) {
this.payment = payment;
}
And my code used to create it using an Enum
IPayment payment = new PaymentFactory.create(PaymentType.Cash);
NaiveService naiveService = new NaiveService(payment);
And I had to have a factory implementation somewhere. Something like this
public IPayment create(PaymentType paymentType) {
IPayment cardPayment = null;
switch (paymentType) {
case Cash:
cardPayment = new CashPayment(100);
break;
case Card:
cardPayment = new CardPayment(10, 100);
break;
}
return cardPayment;
Now I want to use Guice and I guess I want to use FactoryModuleBuilder.
What is the way to do it if I have more that one implentation of IPayment.
(e.g. CardPayment, CashPayment)
This works for one
install(new FactoryModuleBuilder()
.implement(IPayment.class, CashPayment.class)
.build(IPaymentFactory.class));
How do I implement the constructor ?
will it still get IPayment? or will it get the factoryImpl created by Guice?
Thanks
Your existing implementation is the best you can get.
Let's write out a general IPaymentFactory for clarity:
public interface IPaymentFactory {
IPayment create(/* ... */);
}
So instances of IPaymentFactory define one method, that takes in some number of parameters and returns an instance of IPayment. You could write an implementation yourself, and evidently you have, but Guice's FactoryModuleBuilder provides interface implementations like this one automatically. You never need to define anything else about that class: Guice will wire up the constructor for you, and bind it to IPaymentFactory so you can inject IPaymentFactory instances, call create(...) with your parameters, and get IPayment instances.
It looks like what you're going for is a factory that takes an Enum:
public interface IPaymentFactory {
IPayment create(PaymentType paymentType);
}
...but given that CashPayment takes one arbitrary parameter, and CardPayment takes two arbitrary parameters, and given that the selection between them requires a mapping to an arbitrary PaymentType enum, you haven't given Guice nearly enough information to construct the right object.
Guice FactoryModuleBuilder is designed more for combining constructor parameters with dependencies:
// Constructor:
#Inject public BitcoinPayment(
#Assisted long value, // varies by instance as a constructor parameter
BitcoinService bitcoinService // passed-in dependency satisfied by Guice
) { /* ... */ }
// Factory interface:
public IBitcoinPaymentFactory {
BitcoinPayment create(long value); // users don't need to know about dependencies!
}
// Factory binding...
install(new FactoryModuleBuilder().build(IBitcoinPaymentFactory.class));
// ...which lets Guice write the equivalent of:
public GeneratedBitcoinPaymentFactory implements IBitcoinPaymentFactory {
#Inject Provider<BitcoinService> bitcoinServiceProvider;
#Override public BitcoinPayment create(long value) {
return new BitcoinPayment(value, bitcoinServiceProvider.get());
}
}
On one hand, the factory is dumber than you think: It just combines parameters with dependencies to get one whole list. On the other, it's handy: you specify the dependency list once, and Guice does the rest.
In summary: FactoryModuleBuilder won't solve your problem, but it COULD help you create factories for CashPayment and CardPayment, which you could then inject into your manual PaymentFactory implementation (which will still need to exist in some form or another).
P.S. In your example, which might be a "toy problem" for demonstration, you may not need to use Guice. Guice is a great solution for service objects that require dependencies, but data objects (like a payment) or other objects that don't seem to need dependencies (like GuiceService or NaiveService) can be constructed directly using constructors. Once they start needing Guice-injected dependencies, it should be pretty easy to make them Guice-aware.

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