Design Patterns | Abstract Factory Pattern

Abstract Factory Pattern is a creational design pattern. It is almost similar to Factory Pattern with another layer of abstraction over factory pattern. Abstract Factory patterns work around a super-factory which creates other factories.

According to the Gang of Four

Provide an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes.

Intent

Provide an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes.

Abstract factory pattern provides a way to encapsulate a group of individual factories that have a common theme. It provides an interface (or abstract class) for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes.

Abstract Factory Pattern is almost similar to Factory Pattern with one more abstraction layer over factory pattern and this layer provides the factory of the factories.

Participants

The classes and objects participating in this pattern are:

AbstractFactory

It declares an interface for operations that create abstract products.

ConcreteFactory

This class implements the operations to create concrete product objects

AbstractProduct

It declares an interface for a type of product object.

Product

It defines a product object to be created by the corresponding concrete factory and implements the AbstractProduct interface.

Client

The client uses interfaces declared by AbstractFactory and AbstractProduct classes.

Abstract Factory Design Pattern in Java Libraries

javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory#newInstance()

javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory#newInstance()

javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactory#newInstance().