. PHP Design Patterns

PHP Design Patterns Factory Method

About the Factory Method

In the Factory Method Pattern, a factory method defines what functions must be available in the non-abstract or concrete factory. These functions must be able to create objects that are extensions of a specific class. Which exact subclass is created will depend on the value of a parameter passed to the function.

In this example we have a factory method, AbstractFactoryMethod, that specifies the function, makePHPBook($param).

The concrete class OReillyFactoryMethod factory extends AbstractFactoryMethod, and can create the correct the extension of the AbstractPHPBook class for a given value of $param.

AbstractFactoryMethod.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved


  abstract class AbstractFactoryMethod {
  
    abstract function makePHPBook($param);
  
  }

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OReillyFactoryMethod.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2005, all rights reserved


  include_once('AbstractFactoryMethod.php');
  
  include_once('OReillyPHPBook.php');
  include_once('SamsPHPBook.php');  
  
  class OReillyFactoryMethod extends AbstractFactoryMethod {
    private $context = "OReilly";  
    function makePHPBook($param) {
      $book = NULL;
      switch ($param) {
        case "us":
          $book = new OReillyPHPBook;
          break;
        case "other":
          $book = new SamsPHPBook;
          break;
        default:
          $book = new OReillyPHPBook;
          break;		  
      } 
      return $book;  
    }
  }

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SamsFactoryMethod.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2005, all rights reserved


  include_once('AbstractFactoryMethod.php');
  
  include_once('OReillyPHPBook.php');
  include_once('SamsPHPBook.php');
  include_once('VisualQuickstartPHPBook.php');
  
  class SamsFactoryMethod extends AbstractFactoryMethod {
    private $context = "Sams";  
    function makePHPBook($param) {
      $book = NULL;
      switch ($param) {
        case "us":
          $book = new SamsPHPBook;
          break;		
        case "other":
          $book = new OReillyPHPBook;
          break;
        case "otherother":
          $book = new VisualQuickstartPHPBook;
          break;
        default:
          $book = new SamsPHPBook;
          break;	  
      }	  
      return $book;
    }
  }

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AbstractBook.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved
  
    abstract class AbstractBook {
  
    abstract function getAuthor();
    
    abstract function getTitle();
  
  }

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AbstractPHPBook.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved
  
    include_once('AbstractBook.php');
  
    abstract class AbstractPHPBook {
  
    private $subject = "PHP";
  
  }

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OReillyPHPBook.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved


  include_once('AbstractPHPBook.php');
  
  class OReillyPHPBook extends AbstractPHPBook {
  
    private $author;
    
    private $title;
    
    private static $oddOrEven = 'odd';
    function __construct() {
      //alternate between 2 books 
      if ('odd' == self::$oddOrEven) {
        $this->author = 'Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe';
        $this->title  = 'Programming PHP';
        self::$oddOrEven = 'even';
      } else {
        $this->author = 'David Sklar and Adam Trachtenberg';
        $this->title  = 'PHP Cookbook'; 
        self::$oddOrEven = 'odd';
      }  
    }
    function getAuthor() {return $this->author;}
    function getTitle() {return $this->title;}
  }

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SamsPHPBook.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved


  include_once('AbstractPHPBook.php');
  
  class SamsPHPBook extends AbstractPHPBook {
  
    private $author;
    
    private $title;
    
    function __construct() {
    
      //alternate randomly between 2 books
      
      mt_srand((double)microtime()*10000000);
      $rand_num = mt_rand(0,1);      
      
      if (1 > $rand_num) {
        $this->author = 'George Schlossnagle';
        $this->title  = 'Advanced PHP Programming';
      } else {
        $this->author = 'Christian Wenz';
        $this->title  = 'PHP Phrasebook'; 
      }  
    }
  
    function getAuthor() {return $this->author;}
    
    function getTitle() {return $this->title;}
  
  }

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VisualQuickstartPHPBook.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2007, all rights reserved


  include_once('AbstractPHPBook.php');
  
  class VisualQuickstartPHPBook extends AbstractPHPBook {
  
    private $author;
    
    private $title;
    
    function __construct() {
      $this->author = 'Larry Ullman';
      $this->title  = 'PHP for the World Wide Web';
    }
    function getAuthor() {return $this->author;}
    function getTitle() {return $this->title;}
  }

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Try the Design Patterns Video Tutorial from SourceMaking

testFactoryMethod.php

//copyright Lawrence Truett and FluffyCat.com 2005, all rights reserved


  include_once('OReillyFactoryMethod.php');  
  include_once('SamsFactoryMethod.php');


  echo tagins("html");
  echo tagins("head");  
  echo tagins("/head");  
  echo tagins("body");


  echo "BEGIN TESTING FACTORY METHOD PATTERN";
  echo tagins("br").tagins("br");
  
  echo 'testing OReillyFactoryMethod'.tagins("br");
  $factoryMethodInstance = new OReillyFactoryMethod;
  testFactoryMethod($factoryMethodInstance);
  
  echo tagins("br");
  
  echo 'testing SamsFactoryMethod'.tagins("br");
  $factoryMethodInstance = new SamsFactoryMethod;
  testFactoryMethod($factoryMethodInstance);
  
  echo tagins("br");
  echo "END TESTING FACTORY METHOD PATTERN";
  echo tagins("br");
  
  echo tagins("/body");
  echo tagins("/html");


  function testFactoryMethod($factoryMethodInstance) {


    $phpUs = $factoryMethodInstance->makePHPBook("us");
    echo 'us php Author: '.	
	  $phpUs->getAuthor().tagins("br");
    echo 'us php Title: '.	
	  $phpUs->getTitle().tagins("br");


    $phpUs = $factoryMethodInstance->makePHPBook("other");
    echo 'other php Author: '.	
	  $phpUs->getAuthor().tagins("br");
    echo 'other php Title: '.	
	  $phpUs->getTitle().tagins("br");
	  
    $phpUs = $factoryMethodInstance->makePHPBook("otherother");
    echo 'otherother php Author: '.	
	  $phpUs->getAuthor().tagins("br");
    echo 'otherother php Title: '.	
	  $phpUs->getTitle().tagins("br");	  
	  
  }
  
  //doing this so code can be displayed without breaks
  function tagins($stuffing) {
    return "<".$stuffing.">";
  }

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output of testAbstractFactory.php

BEGIN TESTING FACTORY METHOD PATTERN


testing OReillyFactoryMethod
us php Author: Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe
us php Title: Programming PHP
other php Author: George Schlossnagle
other php Title: Advanced PHP Programming
otherother php Author: David Sklar and Adam Trachtenberg
otherother php Title: PHP Cookbook


testing SamsFactoryMethod
us php Author: Christian Wenz
us php Title: PHP Phrasebook
other php Author: Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe
other php Title: Programming PHP
otherother php Author: Larry Ullman
otherother php Title: PHP for the World Wide Web


END TESTING FACTORY METHOD PATTERN

References

Design Patterns
Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides

PHP 5
The Official PHP web site
Core PHP Programming, 3rd Edition by Leon Atkinson and Zeev Suraski

Comments Comments are left by visitors to FluffyCat.com, are not endorsed by FluffyCat.com, and may or may not be accurate.

Comment by Larry on 2006-11-03 Rate this Comment

This example shows one type of factory method, in which a concrete factory can make several variations of one or more related objects. Which variation is created is determined by a parameter passed to the concrete factory.

Another variation has the concrete factory only make one specific set of objects, and by chosing a concrete factory you choose what objects are created. I show one of these factory methods in my Java Design Patterns Factory Method.

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