Re: Preferred method for using factory pattern

Am Thu, 20 Feb 2003 16:03:43 +0100 schrieb Demian Turner <demian@muse23.com>: > What is the preferred method within PEAR for using the factory pattern? > > In Mail it's used like: > > $mail_object =& Mail::factory('sendmail', $params); > > while in Auth, _factory() is private and instantiated like: > > $a = new Auth("DB","mysql://martin:test@example.com/test"); > > I'm writing menu generation class and am guessing the latter is preferred ? Hi Demian, I guess it depends on what you want to achieve, but I prefer to have the factory method public. Besides providing a comfortable interface to a whole family of classes, factory methods in PHP have advantages even if you don´t need to choose another class to instantiate: A normal constructor in PHP can´t return anything except for an object of its class. Using a factory methods even in places where you normally wouldn´t need it in other languages allows you to check the validity of the parameters given to the method and return an error object if something went wrong. This way you can catch errors much better. Wherever I can, I use factory methods instead of using "new". But that´s just my 0.02 EUR ;-) Regards, Markus -- *21st Media* | Consulting, Konzeption, Produktion für die Bereiche: Markus Wolff | Internet, Intranet, eCommerce, Content Management, Hamburg,Germany | Softwareentwicklung, 3D-Animation, Videostreaming http://21st.de | Tel. [+49](0)40/6887949-0, Fax: [+49](0)40/6887949-1