Builder Pattern

Builder Design Pattern

Builder Pattern says that "construct a complex object from simple objects using step-by-step approach"

It is mostly used when object can't be created in single step like in the de-serialization of a complex object.

Example: Creating VZWLandingPage object by calling various rest calls like Plans, Devices, Promotions etc.

Reading bill.out file (with real customer bill related data) and creating complex customer bill object.

Advantage of Builder Design Pattern

The main advantages of Builder Pattern are as follows:

• It provides clear separation between the construction and representation of an object.
• It provides better control over construction process.
• It supports to change the internal representation of objects.

Implementation

We have considered a business case of fast-food restaurant where a typical meal could be a burger and a cold drink. Burger could be either a Veg Burger or Chicken Burger and will be packed by a wrapper. Cold drink could be either a coke or pepsi and will be packed in a bottle.

We are going to create an Item interface representing food items such as burgers and cold drinks and concrete classes implementing the Item interface and a Packing interface representing packaging of food items and concrete classes implementing the Packinginterface as burger would be packed in wrapper and cold drink would be packed as bottle.

We then create a Meal class having ArrayList of Item and a MealBuilder to build different types of Meal objects by combining Item. BuilderPatternDemo, our demo class will use MealBuilder to build a Meal.

Step 1

Create an interface Item representing food item and packing.

Item.java

public interface Item {
   public String name();
   public Packing packing();
   public float price(); 
}

Packing.java

public interface Packing {
   public String pack();
}

Step 2

Create concrete classes implementing the Packing interface.

Wrapper.java

public class Wrapper implements Packing {

   @Override
   public String pack() {
      return "Wrapper";
   }
}

Bottle.java

public class Bottle implements Packing {

   @Override
   public String pack() {
      return "Bottle";
   }
}

Step 3

Create abstract classes implementing the item interface providing default functionalities.

Burger.java

public abstract class Burger implements Item {

   @Override
   public Packing packing() {
      return new Wrapper();
   }

   @Override
   public abstract float price();
}

ColdDrink.java

public abstract class ColdDrink implements Item {

 @Override
 public Packing packing() {
       return new Bottle();
 }

 @Override
 public abstract float price();
}

Step 4

Create concrete classes extending Burger and ColdDrink classes

VegBurger.java

public class VegBurger extends Burger {

   @Override
   public float price() {
      return 25.0f;
   }

   @Override
   public String name() {
      return "Veg Burger";
   }
}

ChickenBurger.java

public class ChickenBurger extends Burger {

   @Override
   public float price() {
      return 50.5f;
   }

   @Override
   public String name() {
      return "Chicken Burger";
   }
}

Coke.java

public class Coke extends ColdDrink {

   @Override
   public float price() {
      return 30.0f;
   }

   @Override
   public String name() {
      return "Coke";
   }
}

Pepsi.java

public class Pepsi extends ColdDrink {

   @Override
   public float price() {
      return 35.0f;
   }

   @Override
   public String name() {
      return "Pepsi";
   }
}

Step 5

Create a Meal class having Item objects defined above.

Meal.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Meal {
   private List<Item> items = new ArrayList<Item>(); 

   public void addItem(Item item){
      items.add(item);
   }

   public float getCost(){
      float cost = 0.0f;
      
      for (Item item : items) {
         cost += item.price();
      }  
      return cost;
   }

   public void showItems(){
   
      for (Item item : items) {
         System.out.print("Item : " + item.name());
         System.out.print(", Packing : " + item.packing().pack());
         System.out.println(", Price : " + item.price());
      }  
   } 
}

Step 6

Create a MealBuilder class, the actual builder class responsible to create Meal objects.

MealBuilder.java

public class MealBuilder {

   public Meal prepareVegMeal (){
      Meal meal = new Meal();
      meal.addItem(new VegBurger());
      meal.addItem(new Coke());
      return meal;
   }   

   public Meal prepareNonVegMeal (){
      Meal meal = new Meal();
      meal.addItem(new ChickenBurger());
      meal.addItem(new Pepsi());
      return meal;
   }
}

Step 7

BuiderPatternDemo uses MealBuider to demonstrate builder pattern.

BuilderPatternDemo.java

public class BuilderPatternDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
   
      MealBuilder mealBuilder = new MealBuilder();

      Meal vegMeal = mealBuilder.prepareVegMeal();
      System.out.println("Veg Meal");
      vegMeal.showItems();
      System.out.println("Total Cost: " + vegMeal.getCost());

      Meal nonVegMeal = mealBuilder.prepareNonVegMeal();
      System.out.println("\n\nNon-Veg Meal");
      nonVegMeal.showItems();
      System.out.println("Total Cost: " + nonVegMeal.getCost());
   }
}

Step 8

Verify the output.

Veg Meal
Item : Veg Burger, Packing : Wrapper, Price : 25.0
Item : Coke, Packing : Bottle, Price : 30.0
Total Cost: 55.0

Non-Veg Meal
Item : Chicken Burger, Packing : Wrapper, Price : 50.5
Item : Pepsi, Packing : Bottle, Price : 35.0
Total Cost: 85.5