When would you use the Builder Pattern? [closed]

Question

What are some common, real world examples of using the Builder Pattern? What does it buy you? Why not just use a Factory Pattern?

Answer 1

Building on the previous answers (pun intended), an excellent real-world example is Groovy's built in support for Builders.

• Creating XML using Groovy's MarkupBuilder
• Creating XML using Groovy's StreamingMarkupBuilder
• Swing Builder
• SwingXBuilder

See Builders in the Groovy Documentation

Answer 2

Another advantage of the builder is that if you have a Factory, there is still some coupling in you code, because for the Factory to work, it has to know all the objects it can possibly create. If you add another object that could be created, you will have to modify the factory class to include him. This happens in the Abstract Factory as well.

With the builder, on the other hand, you just have to create a new concrete builder for this new class. The director class will stay the same, because it receives the builder in the constructor.

Also, there are many flavors of builder. Kamikaze Mercenary`s gives another one.

Answer 3

Below are some reasons arguing for the use of the pattern and example code in Java, but it is an implementation of the Builder Pattern covered by the Gang of Four in Design Patterns. The reasons you would use it in Java are also applicable to other programming languages as well.

As Joshua Bloch states in Effective Java, 2nd Edition:

The builder pattern is a good choice when designing classes whose constructors or static factories would have more than a handful of parameters.

We've all at some point encountered a class with a list of constructors where each addition adds a new option parameter:

Pizza(int size) { ... }        
Pizza(int size, boolean cheese) { ... }    
Pizza(int size, boolean cheese, boolean pepperoni) { ... }    
Pizza(int size, boolean cheese, boolean pepperoni, boolean bacon) { ... }

This is called the Telescoping Constructor Pattern. The problem with this pattern is that once constructors are 4 or 5 parameters long it becomes difficult to remember the required order of the parameters as well as what particular constructor you might want in a given situation.

One alternative you have to the Telescoping Constructor Pattern is the JavaBean Pattern where you call a constructor with the mandatory parameters and then call any optional setters after:

Pizza pizza = new Pizza(12);
pizza.setCheese(true);
pizza.setPepperoni(true);
pizza.setBacon(true);

The problem here is that because the object is created over several calls it may be in an inconsistent state partway through its construction. This also requires a lot of extra effort to ensure thread safety.

The better alternative is to use the Builder Pattern.

public class Pizza {
  private int size;
  private boolean cheese;
  private boolean pepperoni;
  private boolean bacon;

  public static class Builder {
    //required
    private final int size;

    //optional
    private boolean cheese = false;
    private boolean pepperoni = false;
    private boolean bacon = false;

    public Builder(int size) {
      this.size = size;
    }

    public Builder cheese(boolean value) {
      cheese = value;
      return this;
    }

    public Builder pepperoni(boolean value) {
      pepperoni = value;
      return this;
    }

    public Builder bacon(boolean value) {
      bacon = value;
      return this;
    }

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

  private Pizza(Builder builder) {
    size = builder.size;
    cheese = builder.cheese;
    pepperoni = builder.pepperoni;
    bacon = builder.bacon;
  }
}

Note that Pizza is immutable and that parameter values are all in a single location. Because the Builder's setter methods return the Builder object they are able to be chained.

Pizza pizza = new Pizza.Builder(12)
                       .cheese(true)
                       .pepperoni(true)
                       .bacon(true)
                       .build();

This results in code that is easy to write and very easy to read and understand. In this example, the build method could be modified to check parameters after they have been copied from the builder to the Pizza object and throw an IllegalStateException if an invalid parameter value has been supplied. This pattern is flexible and it is easy to add more parameters to it in the future. It is really only useful if you are going to have more than 4 or 5 parameters for a constructor. That said, it might be worthwhile in the first place if you suspect you may be adding more parameters in the future.

I have borrowed heavily on this topic from the book Effective Java, 2nd Edition by Joshua Bloch. To learn more about this pattern and other effective Java practices I highly recommend it.

Answer 4

A great real world example is to use when unit testing your classes. You use sut (System Under Test) builders.

Example:

Class:

public class CustomAuthenticationService
{
    private ICloudService _cloudService;
    private IDatabaseService _databaseService;

    public CustomAuthenticationService(ICloudService cloudService, IDatabaseService databaseService)
    {
        _cloudService = cloudService;
        _databaseService = databaseService;
    }

    public bool IsAuthorized(User user)
    {            
        //Implementation Details
        return true;

}

Test:

    [Test]
    public void Given_a_User_With_Permission_When_Verifying_If_Authorized_Then_Authorize_It_Returning_True()
    {
        CustomAuthenticationService sut = new CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder();
        User userWithAuthorization = null;

        var result = sut.IsAuthorized(userWithAuthorization);

        Assert.That(result, Is.True);
    }

sut Builder:

public class CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder
{
    private ICloudService _cloudService;
    private IDatabaseService _databaseService;

    public CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder()
    {
        _cloudService = new AwsService();
        _databaseService = new SqlServerService();
    }

    public CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder WithAzureService(AzureService azureService)
    {
        _cloudService = azureService;

        return this;
    }

    public CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder WithOracleService(OracleService oracleService)
    {
        _databaseService = oracleService;

        return this;
    }

    public CustomAuthenticationService Build()
    {
        return new CustomAuthenticationService(_cloudService, _databaseService);
    }

    public static implicit operator CustomAuthenticationService (CustomAuthenticationServiceBuilder builder)
    {
        return builder.Build();
    }
}

Answer 5

/// <summary>
/// Builder
/// </summary>
public interface IWebRequestBuilder
{
    IWebRequestBuilder BuildHost(string host);

    IWebRequestBuilder BuildPort(int port);

    IWebRequestBuilder BuildPath(string path);

    IWebRequestBuilder BuildQuery(string query);

    IWebRequestBuilder BuildScheme(string scheme);

    IWebRequestBuilder BuildTimeout(int timeout);

    WebRequest Build();
}

/// <summary>
/// ConcreteBuilder #1
/// </summary>
public class HttpWebRequestBuilder : IWebRequestBuilder
{
    private string _host;

    private string _path = string.Empty;

    private string _query = string.Empty;

    private string _scheme = "http";

    private int _port = 80;

    private int _timeout = -1;

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildHost(string host)
    {
        _host = host;
        return this;
    }

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildPort(int port)
    {
        _port = port;
        return this;
    }

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildPath(string path)
    {
        _path = path;
        return this;
    }

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildQuery(string query)
    {
        _query = query;
        return this;
    }

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildScheme(string scheme)
    {
        _scheme = scheme;
        return this;
    }

    public IWebRequestBuilder BuildTimeout(int timeout)
    {
        _timeout = timeout;
        return this;
    }

    protected virtual void BeforeBuild(HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest) {
    }

    public WebRequest Build()
    {
        var uri = _scheme + "://" + _host + ":" + _port + "/" + _path + "?" + _query;

        var httpWebRequest = WebRequest.CreateHttp(uri);

        httpWebRequest.Timeout = _timeout;

        BeforeBuild(httpWebRequest);

        return httpWebRequest;
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// ConcreteBuilder #2
/// </summary>
public class ProxyHttpWebRequestBuilder : HttpWebRequestBuilder
{
    private string _proxy = null;

    public ProxyHttpWebRequestBuilder(string proxy)
    {
        _proxy = proxy;
    }

    protected override void BeforeBuild(HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest)
    {
        httpWebRequest.Proxy = new WebProxy(_proxy);
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// Director
/// </summary>
public class SearchRequest
{

    private IWebRequestBuilder _requestBuilder;

    public SearchRequest(IWebRequestBuilder requestBuilder)
    {
        _requestBuilder = requestBuilder;
    }

    public WebRequest Construct(string searchQuery)
    {
        return _requestBuilder
        .BuildHost("ajax.googleapis.com")
        .BuildPort(80)
        .BuildPath("ajax/services/search/web")
        .BuildQuery("v=1.0&q=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(searchQuery))
        .BuildScheme("http")
        .BuildTimeout(-1)
        .Build();
    }

    public string GetResults(string searchQuery) {
        var request = Construct(searchQuery);
        var resp = request.GetResponse();

        using (StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream()))
        {
            return stream.ReadToEnd();
        }
    }
}

class Program
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Inside both requests the same SearchRequest.Construct(string) method is used.
    /// But finally different HttpWebRequest objects are built.
    /// </summary>
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var request1 = new SearchRequest(new HttpWebRequestBuilder());
        var results1 = request1.GetResults("IBM");
        Console.WriteLine(results1);

        var request2 = new SearchRequest(new ProxyHttpWebRequestBuilder("localhost:80"));
        var results2 = request2.GetResults("IBM");
        Console.WriteLine(results2);
    }
}

Answer 6

Consider a restaurant. The creation of "today's meal" is a factory pattern, because you tell the kitchen "get me today's meal" and the kitchen (factory) decides what object to generate, based on hidden criteria.

The builder appears if you order a custom pizza. In this case, the waiter tells the chef (builder) "I need a pizza; add cheese, onions and bacon to it!" Thus, the builder exposes the attributes the generated object should have, but hides how to set them.