Abstract Factory Pattern for DAOExercise

The Abstract Factory Pattern allows for multiple factories which share a common theme to be streamlined into one class. In DAOExercise, this class is the ConnectionFactory which will create the appropriate factory for use. This class currently has a concrete implementation for MySQLConnectionFactory and can be further extended (OracleConnectionFactory, OCBCConnectionFactory, etc).

This implementation allows the underlying database (MySQL) to be divorced from the actual DAOExercise (Employee, Address, Dependent) so any database change (e.g Switch from MySQL to Oracle) can be coded and inserted into the ConnectionFactory, touching very little of the code for DAOExercise.

Another way of looking at ConnectionFactory is that it is a factory of factories. The ConnectionFactory determines which factory is to be handed over to the client code via a string which must be set by the client code. The MySQLConnectionFactory will create and return a connection to the MySQL database. This outlook can be confusing when all the client code sees is the ConnectionFactory reference and not the actual factory object.

Using this pattern for DAO creation (a DAOFactory generating EmployeeDAOFactory, AddressDAOFactory and DependentDAOFactory) is impossible with the current design as the implementing classes are not related to each other. The pattern can get around this with the use of the Adapter pattern but that would still require a major rewrite of the design. At best DAO creation is served by a single factory (DAOFactory) which will generate all three classes. Also unlike the ConnectionFactory, where the objects need different initializing data, the DAOFactory objects are self-contained.

As the purpose of a factory is to generate objects for use, a single instance of it would suffice. Coding it so that it complies with the Singleton pattern would enforce this single instance. However, the pattern is not a requirement. Having multiple factories would not be a problem, save for efficiency and design.

In MySQLConnectionFactory, there is a Properties variable which is used to read a file containing all database-specific information. Aside from the connection data, it stores all the SQL queries for that database. These queries are used in the DAO classes. It is not possible to create DAO objects with the file.