Saturday, September 27, 2014

Design Pattern : Builder

When we have so many parameters in constructor. To deal with this problem we have an alternative to use the Builder pattern. We define a static inner class Builder, whose job it is to collect the parameters and then construct the object in one fell swoop

Example:


public class NutritionFacts {
private final int servingSize;
private final int servings;
private final int calories;
private final int fat;
private final int sodium;
private final int carbohydrate;
public static class Builder {
      // Required parameters
      private final int servingSize;
      private final int servings;
      // Optional parameters - initialized to default values
      private int calories = 0;
      private int fat = 0;
      private int carbohydrate = 0;
      private int sodium = 0;

      public Builder(int servingSize, int servings) {
         this.servingSize = servingSize;
         this.servings = servings;
      }

      public Builder calories(int val)
         { calories = val; return this; }

      public Builder fat(int val)
         { fat = val; return this; }

      public Builder carbohydrate(int val)
         { carbohydrate = val; return this; }

      public Builder sodium(int val)
         { sodium = val; return this; }

      public NutritionFacts build() {
        return new NutritionFacts(this);
      }
   }

   private NutritionFacts(Builder builder) {
      servingSize = builder.servingSize;
      servings = builder.servings;
      calories = builder.calories;
      fat = builder.fat;
      sodium = builder.sodium;
      carbohydrate = builder.carbohydrate;
   }
}


Note that NutritionFacts is immutable, and that all parameter default values
are in a single location. The builder’s setter methods return the builder itself so
that invocations can be chained. Here’s how the client code looks:

NutritionFacts cocaCola = new NutritionFacts.Builder(240, 8).
calories(100).sodium(35).carbohydrate(27).build();

This client code is easy to write and, more importantly, to read. The Builder pattern
simulates named optional parameters.

In summary, the Builder pattern is a good choice when designing classes
whose constructors or static factories would have more than a handful of
parameters, especially if most of those parameters are optional.

Source : Effective Java 2nd Edition Chapter 2

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