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I have been reading today about the Abstract Factory Pattern, and tried to make the following implementation.

I have seen a lot of implementations in the internet, where they use switch statements, but I must say that I didn't like that much, since the more factories you make, it seems to me that it makes very difficult to add new products, if needed.

Anyways, I was hoping you to take a look at it and let me know your opinions. Thanks in advance for taking your time to review it.

Factories

from abc import ABC, abstractmethod


class PlayerFactory(ABC):
    """
    This class is meant to be an interface
    """
    @abstractmethod
    def create_goalkeeper(self):
        pass

    @abstractmethod
    def create_defender(self):
        pass


class FootballPlayerFactory(PlayerFactory):
    def create_goalkeeper(self):
        return FootballGoalkeeper()

    def create_defender(self):
        return FootballDefender()


class HockeyPlayerFactory(PlayerFactory):
    def create_goalkeeper(self):
        return HockeyGoalkeeper()

    def create_defender(self):
        return HockeyDefender()

Football players

class FootballPlayer:
    def __init__(self, uses_hands):
        self.uses_hands = uses_hands

    def play(self):
        print("I'm playing football!")


class FootballGoalkeeper(FootballPlayer):
    def __init__(self):
        super(FootballGoalkeeper, self).__init__(uses_hands=True)


class FootballDefender(FootballPlayer):
    def __init__(self):
        super(FootballDefender, self).__init__(uses_hands=False)

Hockey players (my creativity stopped here, so I didn't include any difference between goalkeepers and defenders)

class HockeyPlayer:
    def play(self):
        print("I'm playing hockey!")


class HockeyGoalkeeper(HockeyPlayer):
    pass


class HockeyDefender(HockeyPlayer):
    pass

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2
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ super(FootballGoalKeeper, self) can be replaced by super() \$\endgroup\$
    – hjpotter92
    Aug 17, 2020 at 12:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks! Oh yes, you're right. I'm just too used to that old syntax. Thanks for pointing that out. @hjpotter92 \$\endgroup\$
    – revliscano
    Aug 17, 2020 at 14:38

1 Answer 1

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As your code presently stands, you don't need the derived Factory classes. They don't do anything different from each other, so they can all be handled by a concrete base class.

class PlayerFactory:

    def __init__(self, goal_keeper_class, defender_class):
        self._goal_keeper_class = goal_keeper_class
        self._defender_class = defender_class

    def create_goalkeeper(self):
        return self._goal_keeper_class()

    def create_defender(self):
        return self._defender_class()

player_factory = {
    "Football": PlayerFactory(FootballGoalkeeper, FootballDefender),
    "Hockey": PlayerFactory(HockeyGoalkeeper, HockeyDefender),
}

Example Usage:

>>> player = player_factory["Hockey"].create_defender()
>>> type(player)
<class '__main__.HockeyDefender'>
>>> player.play()
I'm playing hockey!
>>>

If there is some aspect of the factories which actually do something different, and thus necessitate separated derived classes, you'll need to include that in your question.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you for this, it's very useful. Hmm yes, your code makes so much more sense, but I was just trying to think in a way to use or make an example of Abstract Factory pattern. :-( I guess I'm still confused by the use cases of this pattern. \$\endgroup\$
    – revliscano
    Aug 17, 2020 at 16:12
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Well, if you added a "create_team" method, your various factories might return different numbers of players for the various positions. You could implement it with code in different derived classes, but it could be simply data-driven without needing derived classes. There is always more than one way to do it. The Abstract Factory pattern is a useful tool for your toolbox, but it isn't necessarily the right tool to use until your problem becomes significantly more complex. \$\endgroup\$
    – AJNeufeld
    Aug 17, 2020 at 16:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Invaluable information. This is the kind of clarification and inputs I was expecting to have. @AJNeufeld \$\endgroup\$
    – revliscano
    Aug 17, 2020 at 16:53

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