🎉 Ultra-simplified explanation to design patterns! 🎉
A topic that can easily make anyone's mind wobble. Here I try to make them stick in to your
mind (and maybe mine) by explaining them in the simplest way possible.
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Introduction
Design patterns are solutions to recurring problems; guidelines on how to tackle certain problems. They are not classes, packages or libraries that you can plug into your application and wait for the magic to happen. These are, rather, guidelines on how to tackle certain problems in certain situations.
Design patterns are solutions to recurring problems; guidelines on how to tackle certain problems
Wikipedia describes them as
In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.
⚠️ Be Careful
- Design patterns are not a silver bullet to all your problems.
- Do not try to force them; bad things are supposed to happen, if done so.
- Keep in mind that design patterns are solutions to problems, not solutions finding problems; so don't overthink.
- If used in a correct place in a correct manner, they can prove to be a savior; or else they can result in a horrible mess of a code.
Also note that the code samples below are in PHP-7, however this shouldn't stop you because the concepts are same anyways.
Types of Design Patterns
Creational Design Patterns
In plain words
Creational patterns are focused towards how to instantiate an object or group of related objects.
Wikipedia says
In software engineering, creational design patterns are design patterns that deal with object creation mechanisms, trying to create objects in a manner suitable to the situation. The basic form of object creation could result in design problems or added complexity to the design. Creational design patterns solve this problem by somehow controlling this object creation.
🏠 Simple Factory
Real world example
Consider, you are building a house and you need doors. You can either put on your carpenter clothes, bring some wood, glue, nails and all the tools required to build the door and start building it in your house or you can simply call the factory and get the built door delivered to you so that you don't need to learn anything about the door making or to deal with the mess that comes with making it.
In plain words
Simple factory simply generates an instance for client without exposing any instantiation logic to the client
Wikipedia says
In object-oriented programming (OOP), a factory is an object for creating other objects – formally a factory is a function or method that returns objects of a varying prototype or class from some method call, which is assumed to be "new".
Programmatic Example
First of all we have a door interface and the implementation
interface Door
{
public function getWidth(): float;
public function getHeight(): float;
}
class WoodenDoor implements Door
{
protected $width;
protected $height;
public function __construct(float $width, float $height)
{
$this->width = $width;
$this->height = $height;
}
public function getWidth(): float
{
return $this->width;
}
public function getHeight(): float
{
return $this->height;
}
}
Then we have our door factory that makes the door and returns it
class DoorFactory
{
public static function makeDoor($width, $height): Door
{
return new WoodenDoor($width, $height);
}
}
And then it can be used as
// Make me a door of 100x200
$door = DoorFactory::makeDoor(100, 200);
echo 'Width: ' . $door->getWidth();
echo 'Height: ' . $door->getHeight();
// Make me a door of 50x100
$door2 = DoorFactory::makeDoor(50, 100);
When to Use?
When creating an object is not just a few assignments and involves some logic, it makes sense to put it in a dedicated factory instead of repeating the same code everywhere.
🏭 Factory Method
Real world example
Consider the case of a hiring manager. It is impossible for one person to interview for each of the positions. Based on the job opening, she has to decide and delegate the interview steps to different people.
In plain words
It provides a way to delegate the instantiation logic to child classes.
Wikipedia says
In class-based programming, the factory method pattern is a creational pattern that uses factory methods to deal with the problem of creating objects without having to specify the exact class of the object that will be created. This is done by creating objects by calling a factory method—either specified in an interface and implemented by child classes, or implemented in a base class and optionally overridden by derived classes—rather than by calling a constructor.
Programmatic Example
Taking our hiring manager example above. First of all we have an interviewer interface and some implementations for it
interface Interviewer
{
public function askQuestions();
}
class Developer implements Interviewer
{
public function askQuestions()
{
echo 'Asking about design patterns!';
}
}
class CommunityExecutive implements Interviewer
{
public function askQuestions()
{
echo 'Asking about community building';
}
}
Now let us create our HiringManager
abstract class HiringManager
{
// Factory method
abstract protected function makeInterviewer(): Interviewer;
public function takeInterview()
{
$interviewer = $this->makeInterviewer();
$interviewer->askQuestions();
}
}
Now any child can extend it and provide the required interviewer
class DevelopmentManager extends HiringManager
{
protected function makeInterviewer(): Interviewer
{
return new Developer();
}
}
class MarketingManager extends HiringManager
{
protected function makeInterviewer(): Interviewer
{
return new CommunityExecutive();
}
}
and then it can be used as
$devManager = new DevelopmentManager();
$devManager->takeInterview(); // Output: Asking about design patterns
$marketingManager = new MarketingManager();
$marketingManager->takeInterview(); // Output: Asking about community building.
When to use?
Useful when there is some generic processing in a class but the required sub-class is dynamically decided at runtime. Or putting it in other words, when the client doesn't know what exact sub-class it might need.
🔨 Abstract Factory
Real world example
Extending our door example from Simple Factory. Based on your needs you might get a wooden door from a wooden door shop, iron door from an iron shop or a PVC door from the relevant shop. Plus you might need a guy with different kind of specialities to fit the door, for example a carpenter for wooden door, welder for iron door etc. As you can see there is a dependency between the doors now, wooden door needs carpenter, iron door needs a welder etc.
In plain words
A factory of factories; a factory that groups the individual but related/dependent factories together without specifying their concrete classes.
Wikipedia says
The abstract factory pattern provides a way to encapsulate a group of individual factories that have a common theme without specifying their concrete classes
Programmatic Example
Translating the door example above. First of all we have our Door interface and some implementation for it
interface Door
{
public function getDescription();
}
class WoodenDoor implements Door
{
public function getDescription()
{
echo 'I am a wooden door';
}
}
class IronDoor implements Door
{
public function getDescription()
{
echo 'I am an iron door';
}
}
Then we have some fitting experts for each door type
interface DoorFittingExpert
{
public function getDescription();
}
class Welder implements DoorFittingExpert
{
public function getDescription()
{
echo 'I can only fit iron doors';
}
}
class Carpenter implements DoorFittingExpert
{
public function getDescription()
{
echo 'I can only fit wooden doors';
}
}
Now we have our abstract factory that would let us make family of related objects i.e. wooden door factory would create a wooden door and wooden door fitting expert and iron door factory would create an iron door and iron door fitting expert
interface DoorFactory
{
public function makeDoor(): Door;
public function makeFittingExpert(): DoorFittingExpert;
}
// Wooden factory to return carpenter and wooden door
class WoodenDoorFactory implements DoorFactory
{
public function makeDoor(): Door
{
return new WoodenDoor();
}
public function makeFittingExpert(): DoorFittingExpert
{
return new Carpenter();
}
}
// Iron door factory to get iron door and the relevant fitting expert
class IronDoorFactory implements DoorFactory
{
public function makeDoor(): Door
{
return new IronDoor();
}
public function makeFittingExpert(): DoorFittingExpert
{
return new Welder();
}
}
And then it can be used as
$woodenFactory = new WoodenDoorFactory();
$door = $woodenFactory->makeDoor();
$expert = $woodenFactory->makeFittingExpert();
$door->getDescription(); // Output: I am a wooden door
$expert->getDescription(); // Output: I can only fit wooden doors
// Same for Iron Factory
$ironFactory = new IronDoorFactory();
$door = $ironFactory->makeDoor();
$expert = $ironFactory->makeFittingExpert();
$door->getDescription(); // Output: I am an iron door
$expert->getDescription(); // Output: I can only fit iron doors
As you can see the wooden door factory has encapsulated the carpenter and the wooden door also iron door factory has encapsulated the iron door and welder. And thus it had helped us make sure that for each of the created door, we do not get a wrong fitting expert.
When to use?
When there are interrelated dependencies with not-that-simple creation logic involved
👷 Builder
Real world example
Imagine you are at Hardee's and you order a specific deal, lets say, "Big Hardee" and they hand it over to you without any questions; this is the example of simple factory. But there are cases when the creation logic might involve more steps. For example you want a customized Subway deal, you have several options in how your burger is made e.g what bread do you want? what types of sauces would you like? What cheese would you want? etc. In such cases builder pattern comes to the rescue.
In plain words
Allows you to create different flavors of an object while avoiding constructor pollution. Useful when there could be several flavors of an object. Or when there are a lot of steps involved in creation of an object.
Wikipedia says
The builder pattern is an object creation software design pattern with the intentions of finding a solution to the telescoping constructor anti-pattern.
Having said that let me add a bit about what telescoping constructor anti-pattern is. At one point or the other we have all seen a constructor like below:
public function __construct($size, $cheese = true, $pepperoni = true, $tomato = false, $lettuce = true)
{
}
As you can see; the number of constructor parameters can quickly get out of hand and it might become difficult to understand the arrangement of parameters. Plus this parameter list could keep on growing if you would want to add more options in future. This is called telescoping constructor anti-pattern.
Programmatic Example
The sane alternative is to use the builder pattern. First of all we have our burger that we want to make
class Burger
{
protected $size;
protected $cheese = false;
protected $pepperoni = false;
protected $lettuce = false;
protected $tomato = false;
public function __construct(BurgerBuilder $builder)
{
$this->size = $builder->size;
$this->cheese = $builder->cheese;
$this->pepperoni = $builder->pepperoni;
$this->lettuce = $builder->lettuce;
$this->tomato = $builder->tomato;
}
}
And then we have the builder
class BurgerBuilder
{
public $size;
public $cheese = false;
public $pepperoni = false;
public $lettuce = false;
public $tomato = false;
public function __construct(int $size)
{
$this->size = $size;
}
public function addPepperoni()
{
$this->pepperoni = true;
return $this;
}
public function addLettuce()
{
$this->lettuce = true;
return $this;
}
public function addCheese()
{
$this->cheese = true;
return $this;
}
public function addTomato()
{
$this->tomato = true;
return $this;
}
public function build(): Burger
{
return new Burger($this);
}
}
And then it can be used as:
$burger = (new BurgerBuilder(14))
->addPepperoni()
->addLettuce()
->addTomato()
->build();
When to use?
When there could be several flavors of an object and to avoid the constructor telescoping. The key difference from the factory pattern is that; factory pattern is to be used when the creation is a one step process while builder pattern is to be used when the creation is a multi step process.
🐑 Prototype
Real world example
Remember dolly? The sheep that was cloned! Lets not get into the details but the key point here is that it is all about cloning
In plain words
Create object based on an existing object through cloning.
Wikipedia says
The prototype pattern is a creational design pattern in software development. It is used when the type of objects to create is determined by a prototypical instance, which is cloned to produce new objects.
In short, it allows you to create a copy of an existing object and modify it to your needs, instead of going through the trouble of creating an object from scratch and setting it up.
Programmatic Example
In PHP, it can be easily done using clone
class Sheep
{
protected $name;
protected $category;
public function __construct(string $name, string $category = 'Mountain Sheep')
{
$this->name = $name;
$this->category = $category;
}
public function setName(string $name)
{
$this->name = $name;
}
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
public function setCategory(string $category)
{
$this->category = $category;
}
public function getCategory()
{
return $this->category;
}
}
Then it can be cloned like below
$original = new Sheep('Jolly');
echo $original->getName(); // Jolly
echo $original->getCategory(); // Mountain Sheep
// Clone and modify what is required
$cloned = clone $original;
$cloned->setName('Dolly');
echo $cloned->getName(); // Dolly
echo $cloned->getCategory(); // Mountain sheep
Also you could use the magic method __clone to modify the cloning behavior.
When to use?
When an object is required that is similar to existing object or when the creation would be expensive as compared to cloning.
💍 Singleton
Real world example
There can only be one president of a country at a time. The same president has to be brought to action, whenever duty calls. President here is singleton.
In plain words
Ensures that only one object of a particular class is ever created.
Wikipedia says
In software engineering, the singleton pattern is a software design pattern that restricts the instantiation of a class to one object. This is useful when exactly one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system.
Singleton pattern is actually considered an anti-pattern and overuse of it should be avoided. It is not necessarily bad and could have some valid use-cases but should be used with caution because it introduces a global state in your application and change to it in one place could affect in the other areas and it could become pretty difficult to debug. The other bad thing about them is it makes your code tightly coupled plus mocking the singleton could be difficult.
Programmatic Example
To create a singleton, make the constructor private, disable cloning, disable extension and create a static variable to house the instance
final class President
{
private static $instance;
private function __construct()
{
// Hide the constructor
}
public static function getInstance(): President
{
if (!self::$instance) {
self::$instance = new self();
}
return self::$instance;
}
private function __clone()
{
// Disable cloning
}
private function __wakeup()
{
// Disable unserialize
}
}
Then in order to use
$president1 = President::getInstance();
$president2 = President::getInstance();
var_dump($president1 === $president2); // true
Structural Design Patterns
In plain words
Structural patterns are mostly concerned with object composition or in other words how the entities can use each other. Or yet another explanation would be, they help in answering "How to build a software component?"
Wikipedia says
In software engineering, structural design patterns are design patterns that ease the design by identifying a simple way to realize relationships between entities.
🔌 Adapter
Real world example
Consider that you have some pictures in your memory card and you need to transfer them to your computer. In order to transfer them you need some kind of adapter that is compatible with your computer ports so that you can attach memory card to your computer. In this case card reader is an adapter.
Another examp
这是用大白话和现实生活类比来讲解经典软件设计模式的内容（包括创建型、结构型、行为型），每个模式都配有一段简短的 PHP 代码示例。