Use decorator and factory together to extend objects?
- by TheClue
I'm new to OOP and design pattern.
I've a simple app that handles the generation of Tables, Columns (that belong to Table), Rows (that belong to Column) and Values (that belong to Rows). Each of these object can have a collection of Property, which is in turn defined as an enum.
They are all interfaces: I used factories to get concrete instances of these products, depending on circumnstances.
Now I'm facing the problem of extending these classes. Let's say I need another product called "SpecialTable" which in turn has some special properties or new methods like 'getSomethingSpecial' or an extended set of Property. The only way is to extend/specialize all my elements (ie. build a SpecialTableFactory, a SpecialTable interface and a SpecialTableImpl concrete)? What to do if, let's say, I plan to use standard methods like addRow(Column column, String name) that doesn't need to be specialized?
I don't like the idea to inherit factories and interfaces, but since SpecialTable has more methods than Table i guess it cannot share the same factory. Am I wrong?
Another question: if I need to define product properties at run time (a Table that is upgraded to SpecialTable at runtime), i guess i should use a decorator. Is it possible (and how) to combine both factory and decorator design? Is it better to use a State or Strategy pattern, instead?
