In the previous part we fixed the code which reads the Person instances from the datafiles. A part of this code was a Factory class based on a switch statement. This solution is ok, but when we add a new parser, we need to remember to add a new case block to the switch statement. It is not really an issue in our example, probably it wouldn’t be a weekly event to add new and new parsers, but just for fun, we can try to make this process automatic.
Convention over Configuration
Around a decade ago a design paradigm started getting popular, called “Convention over Configuration” or sometimes they call it “Coding by Convention”, which name is a better fit to our case.
Probably most developers have edited xml files or even sourcecode to add mappings which described which objects should work together or which property should be used in which case. That is quite boring, easy to forget or mistype, and many times these mappings are obvious, they can be matched by names for example. Instead of the manual configuration, using naming rules, or conventions, we can let the program code make the pairing. This is what we will be doing today.
If we want a convention based factory, we need to come up with a convention first. We have these types with these parsers:
- “xml” – XmlParser
- “bin” – BinaryParser
The easiest way to find a good rule, if we rename the binaryParser to binParser, because in this case the sourceType + the “Parser” word gives the name of the class we need to use for a given SourceType.
Finding the parsers
Our application is only a single assembly, so we don’t need complex logic for finding parsers. We just take the executing assembly and check all classes for name matching.
...
static readonly string pattern = "^(?<format>.*)Parser$";
static readonly Regex convention = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.Compiled);
...
// take all types from the currently running assembly
foreach (var type in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes())
{
// check for name convention
var match = convention.Match(type.Name);
if (match.Success)
{
// found a parser that supports a given source type
var sourceType = match.Groups[1].Value;
...
}
}
The parsers are built the way that they need a Stream for their constructors, so we are interested only those classes:
var construtorInfo =
type.GetConstructor(
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
Type.DefaultBinder,
new Type[] { typeof(Stream) },
null);
if (construtorInfo != null)
{
...
}
Using the constructorInfo, it is possible to create an appropriate parser, but we don’t need it right now. We need it later when we have a Stream to parse. So let’s store the constructorInfo for later use:
static Dictionary<string,Type> typeMap =
new Dictionary<string,Type>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
...
if (construtorInfo != null)
{
typeMap[sourceType] = type;
}
Now the Create method of the Factory class can be implemented the following way:
internal static IEnumerator<Person> Create(string formatType, Stream source)
{
var instance = Activator.CreateInstance(
typeMap[formatType],
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
null,
new object[] {source},
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
return instance as IEnumerator<Person>;
}
Who will run the configuration?
Now we have a method which searches for parsers, and we modified the Create() method of the factory. But who will run the search? We wanted to have the factory search for parsers automatically. We know that a static constructor of a class runs before we use the class, so it is a good place to put the search there. A first version of the new factory:
internal static class EnumeratorFactory
{
static readonly string pattern = "^(?<format>.*)Enumerator$";
static readonly Regex convention = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.Compiled);
static Dictionary<string,Type> typeMap =
new Dictionary<string,Type>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
static EnumeratorFactory()
{
foreach (var type in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes())
{
var match = convention.Match(type.Name);
if (match.Success)
{
var sourceType = match.Groups[1].Value;
var construtorInfo =
type.GetConstructor(
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
Type.DefaultBinder,
new Type[] { typeof(Stream) },
null);
if (construtorInfo != null)
{
typeMap[sourceType] = type;
}
}
}
}
internal static IEnumerator<Person> Create(string formatType, Stream source)
{
var instance =
Activator.CreateInstance(
typeMap[formatType],
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
null,
new object[] { source },
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
return instance as IEnumerator<Person>;
}
}
This code works, but can be improved in several ways:
Single Responsibility
The new factory class violates the Single Responsibility Principle. It searches for parsers and create parsers, these are two different things, and should be implemented in two different classes.
Complex method
A static constructor of the new factory is quite complex. It is rarely not a bad sign if a loop has several lines within it, in a loop we usually work on a different abstraction level which should be in its own method. In the code above the loop has an if statement which also has an if statement in it, so we jump through several levels and concepts within a single method.
Implementation details in Create()
The Create() method knows too much low level details about how to create a parser. Yes, this is the job of the create method, to create parser instances. But only in that sense that it should know which type needs which parser. It should not know about ConstructorInfos and Activator class. Its only responsibility should be the following:
internal static class ParserFactory
{
static readonly Dictionary<string, Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>>> activators =
ParserFactoryConfig.GetActivatorMap();
internal static IEnumerator<Person> Create(Stream source, string sourceType)
{
Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>> activator;
if (activators.TryGetValue(sourceType, out activator))
{
return activator(source);
}
else
{
throw new NotSupportedException(
string.Format("Not supported format: {0}", sourceType));
}
}
}
The video version of this article explains how to build the ParserFactoryConfig, the final code looks like the following:
internal static class ParserFactoryConfig
{
static readonly string pattern = @"^(?<format>.+)Parser$";
static readonly Regex convention = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.Compiled);
internal static Dictionary<string, Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>>> GetActivatorMap()
{
var result = new Dictionary<string, Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>>>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
foreach (var type in GetCandidateTypes())
{
var formatType = default(string);
var activator = default(Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>>);
if (TryCreateActivatorByConvention(type, out formatType, out activator))
{
result[formatType] = activator;
}
}
return result;
}
private static bool TryCreateActivatorByConvention(Type type, out string formatType, out Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>> activator)
{
formatType = default(string);
activator = default(Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>>);
if (TryMatchConvention(type, out formatType))
{
if (TryCreateActivator(type, out activator))
{
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
private static bool TryCreateActivator(Type type, out Func<Stream, IEnumerator<Person>> activator)
{
activator = null;
var constructorInfo = default(ConstructorInfo);
if (TryGetConstructorInfo(type, out constructorInfo))
{
var parserType = type;
activator = stream => Activator.CreateInstance(
parserType,
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
null,
new object[] { stream },
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture
) as IEnumerator<Person>;
}
return activator != null;
}
private static bool TryMatchConvention(Type type, out string formatType)
{
var match = convention.Match(type.Name);
if (match.Success)
{
formatType = match.Groups[1].Value;
}
else
{
formatType = null;
}
return match.Success;
}
private static bool TryGetConstructorInfo(Type type, out ConstructorInfo constructorInfo)
{
constructorInfo = type.GetConstructor(
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance,
Type.DefaultBinder,
new Type[] { typeof(Stream) },
null);
return constructorInfo != null;
}
private static IEnumerable<Type> GetCandidateTypes()
{
return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes().Where(t => typeof(IEnumerator<Person>).IsAssignableFrom(t));
}
}
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