This group of modules implement the Factory Method as described in Gamma E, et al. 'Design Patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software' Addison-Wesley, 1995 [known to many as GOF].

The Factory Method's intent is to 'Define an interface for creating an object, but let subclasses decide which class to instatiate. Factory Method lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses.' [GOF, p107]

Fuller documentation is available in each of the participating classes, named:

  DesignPattern::Factory::Product
  DesignPattern::Factory::ConcreteProduct
  DesignPattern::Factory::Creator
  DesignPattern::Factory::ConcreteCreator

A good place to start reading the documentation is DesignPattern::Factory::ConcreteCreator, which in a real-world example would be your application.

Nigel Wetters (nwetters@cpan.org)

Copyright (c) 2001, Nigel Wetters. All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.