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In the first place it should be trivial to explain to other devs why they should use a factory, since otherwise their instantiation code is going to contain reflection or type-selector-switching. (So will the code inside the factory, mind, so it's not technically better that way, but it does make the user code cleaner and that should be easy to demonstrate.) This is the one case where I absolutely agree with the factory pattern (along with the self-extending-collection I mentioned before).
An alternative pattern for the second way is to pass the catalog to the constructor and have instances register themselves. I'd generally prefer that to a factory – the registration is an external linkage of the instance, not an intrinsic attribute of it, and it doesn't make sense to me to tie instances to a particular factory simply because they need to register somewhere. Factories prohibit you from subclassing the item types for customised behaviour, whereas self-registration doesn't.
Are you a converted Java developer? The mention of Spring along with the factory-centric mindset makes that seem likely to me. If so, I think you should be looking to pick up .Net habits, not enforce your Java preferences on your team.
however i would expect anyone finding themselves doing such things to get at a ctor to ask themselves if that class was meant to be directly instantiated.
Right, but if the only reason that they ask that is because you've put an arbitrary mechanism into the code that amounts to nothing more than 'because I said so', you should be asking whether there is really a good reason why they shouldn't instantiate that class directly. If there's a good reason why the class needs to be factory-spawned, there will be some awkwardness involved in using it directly that will already cause them to wonder if they are missing something.
I have written quite complex .Net applications (solo and as part of a team) and I don't think I've ever had to use a factory, apart from the runtime loading against an interface (the plugin architecture common in .Net apps is essentially grand scale IPlugin factorying, and creating DbCommands against the correct type of database). I have had the container registration thing you mention and that can be solved without a factory.
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I get your point with regards to flexibility of use being restricted by a factory
In my most recent implementation using a factory I was implementing a system whereby properties of a viewmodel would be backed by wrapped values to provide additional functionality (history tracking, validation etc).. a lot of the data for these wrapped values was to be declared on a static field definition (thinks such as notification logic, validation rules, unit derivation information etc). Each class would, therefore, have a static field catalog holding a collection of field definitions.
From the field catalog an instance 'state manager' object could be created that exposed the value wrappers. It was these value wrappers i didn't want directly instantiated as they would not be tied to a field definition.
This could have been achieved, i suppose, by instantiating the state manger and passing ti to the wrapper's constructor, however a lot of the instantiation process is automated by having it performed as part of the statemanager initialization
I hope that gives some insight into my thinking in that scenario
As for being a java developer, i'm a c# developer but in a previous job (early in my career) i worked for a company that used both java and c# (on the same product, java back end, c# client) and fell under the tutelage of a java dev ... so i will concede i may have picked up a few java-isms along the way 
Pedis ex oris
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
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GParkings wrote: Some examples i've come across:
Those are of course appropriate uses. Most cases do not apply to that.
If you have users circumventing that then education is the proper course.
Look at it in a different way if they don't know why you are doing that then they might be writing their own code in a way that is inappropriate because they don't understand the alternatives.
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GParkings wrote: What techniques do everyone use to enforce use of a singleton factory?
I'm familiar with the pattern, but I tend to use it only when it adds value. A constructor can be found using reflection, and most programmers will be familiar with the "x = new x()" pattern. Factory-methods can't use object initializers[^], which would also count as a drawback.
Otherwise, it's always a matter of making the constructor private and doing the construction from a method. The pattern I'm using is described here[^].
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
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personally i've always preferred a suite of dedicated singleton factories (providing construction for a category of types) than individual static factory methods on each type. Thats probably personal preference though.
Pedis ex oris
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
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GParkings wrote: personally i've always preferred a suite of dedicated singleton factories
(providing construction for a category of types) than individual static factory
methods on each type. Thats probably personal preference though.
Taste is a lousy argument. Either it helps during the implementation, or it doesn't.
What's the use of a factory if it merely hides the constructor? Yes, I agree that they're a nice way of moving the construction to a user-configuration, but you don't need a factory-method in every class to do so; in fact, it'd be overkill, and needless complexity. Needless complexity is usually avoided, as it makes the project harder to maintain, and increases the chance of introducing bugs.
If the programmer that's using your classes needs to use a different class based on a configuration, then he'd be the one to build a factory.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
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I think we are getting some crossed wires here , i am actually arguing against a factory method in every class and talkign about a common singleton factory providing factory methods for a group of classes with a common association.
Also, and perhaps my initial question was a little misleading, i am not suggesting a factory approach for every class, rather, i was trying to spark a debate on how to enforce use of a factory where one is deemed nescessary/advantageous
Pedis ex oris
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
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GParkings wrote: I think we are getting some crossed wires here , i am actually arguing against a factory method in every class and talkign about a common singleton factory providing factory methods for a group of classes with a common association.
Aye, I misunderstood. In that case, I'd say that they could build a factory as soon as they need it, based on the argument that you don't know beforehand which kind of parameter will be used for the factory to decide on (a string; an enum; a hash), nor which classes that the factory should choose between.
You might provide a decent set in your factory, but what if I need to "add" a derived class to that? Yes, I could encapsulate it in a new factory (a new strategy) if I'm passing a different parameter-type, but it would only add even more complexity.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
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GParkings wrote: What techniques do everyone use
I work alone.  (On my own stuff anyway.
I haven't had need of them in "the real world".
The only place I have factories in my code is amongst my database access classes -- they allow the selection and instantiation of a class specified in a configuration file or command line parameter. But the classes work fine without them as well, for those times when I don't want the flexibility.
I agree with the opinion that you are being overly dogmatic.
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ok, i see where my tounge-in-cheek manner of typing up that post may have given that impression. fair enough 
As i stated in another reply, i'm not suggesting a factory for every class. what i was attempting to do with this post was spark a debate over approaches to enforcing/encouraging use of factories where such things are advantageous.
i tend to work in dev teams for periods of 6 months, im not around after that to explain how particular classes should be instantiated personally so i aim to make the intended instantiation 'easiest-path' (i do, ofc, write documentation.. the whole last month of my last contract was spent documenting every concept within the code. but i'm the first to admit i don't always reach straight for the docs and things can get overlooked)
So, really, rather than trying to write annoying code as you suggest, i am trying to make peoples lives easier by guiding them to the intended use of the code i have written without having to spend hours examining it or reading documentation
Pedis ex oris
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
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I can think of a few times where I'd use the factory method, but it would be to simplify object creation, not to play programming cop . As another poster mentioned, you can just have your constructors protected if you don't want people creating your objects directly.
Writing code full of design patterns makes it less maintainable IMO.
I follow some architecture patterns in my code like MVVM and have adopted Dependency Injection, but most of the time, I try to write my public classes so they are completely stand-alone.
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GParkings wrote: I am a fan of factory and interface driven development but often find myself
working amongst people i do not trust to stick to such patterns.
Presumably not because you are over using it.
The primary reason for factories is to control the creation idiom.
GParkings wrote: What techniques do everyone use to enforce use of a singleton factory? or do you
simply trust your fellow developers to do things properly?
The use case should make usage easy. If not then something is probably wrong somewhere.
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GParkings wrote: What techniques do everyone use to enforce use of a singleton factory?
In general, without regard to the "singleton" part, I would usually implement a factory such that the factory and class are part of the same project. And the target classes are all internal. The factory is public.
Whether the factory is a singleton or not doesn't really have anything to do with that decision.
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You have two options, and one requires that the classes be in a separate project.
If you have your class and factory in a separate project from the one that is creating instances of the class, then you have have all constructors in the class declared internal.
public class testFactory
{
public static test2 CreateTest()
{
return new test2();
}
}
class test2
{
internal test()
{
}
}
The option option is to integrate the factory with the class:
class test
{
public static test CreateTest()
{
return new test();
}
protected test()
{
}
}
Unlike some other people here, I think there can be really good reasons to want to force using a factory.
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Can you say what some of those 'really good reasons' are?
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It prevents developers from using the class in a way that is not intended. This prevents the more junior developers in the project from doing things in a way the architect does not want the developers to do. Just like when an Architect defines what projects can reference other projects. A good case would be when there are different implementations of an interface/abstract class, depending on some state information, and the this way the instantiating software does not have to know the details of which concrete type that is being instantiated. This is why ADO used software factories. If a developer then bypasses the factory, a bug could be introduced that the architect worked very hard to avoid.
To give another case: something I disagree with but also agree with is only being able to inherit from a single class. I can see cases where it would be very advantageous to allow multiple inheritance. This could be considered somewhat arbitrary, like preventing instantiation of a class without using a factory.
"Microsoft has been championing Software Factories to address the challenges of software development"
This indicates that Microsoft is a strong supporter of Factories. I am not an architect, so I am not an expert on architecting applications, and so am not as familiar as I probably should be in how factories are a good tool in creating good software architecture.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_method_pattern[^]
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You could mark the constructor as obsolete with a message pointing people to the factory. Then use a pragma to suppress the warning in your factory when you call the constructor. It might look a bit ugly, but it will clearly point developers to the correct usage. Sometimes practical and explicit is more important than pretty. 
For the discussion about using your pattern in the first place - Typically I would lean more towards an interface in Java and an abstract base class in .NET. This is what the respective developers would expect, and there are actually very good reasons for this difference as there are fundamental differences between the languages in this area.
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If i click button , that content will open in a new tab. Like that i want to do 5 Buttons with different content. If i click one button the already open tab will be opened . Can you give me any solution .(I want IE,mozilla,google chrome browsers)
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That's not a question, that's an assignment. How much are you willing to pay?
Please state "which content" will be opened in a new browser-tab. If it's a file then simply start the browser using the Proccess[^] class and pass the location to your file as a parameter.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
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<a href="..." target="_blank"> will open a new tab in Chrome and Firefox, as long as they're configured to do so. I'm not sure about the JavaScript window.open.
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The second argument of window.open is a name for the window. Give a unique name and a new 'window' (not a 'tab') would be opened up.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
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But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep!
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Hello All,
I need to upload files to a server using http in a windows application. Is that possible? I have got some examples using HttpPostedFile , but that is in web application. The code is given below...
if( filMyFile.PostedFile != null )
{
HttpPostedFile myFile = filMyFile.PostedFile;
int nFileLen = myFile.ContentLength;
if( nFileLen > 0 )
{
byte[] myData = new byte[nFileLen];
myFile.InputStream.Read(myData, 0, nFileLen);
string strFilename =
Path.GetFileName(myFile.FileName);
FileStream newFile = new FileStream(strPath,
FileMode.Create);
newFile.Write(Buffer, 0, Buffer.Length);
newFile.Close();
}
}
I have placed an openfiledialog in a windows form and used the following code..
FileInfo fileInf = new FileInfo(openFileDialog1.FileName);
But how I can assign this FileInfo to HttpPostedFile. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance...
Sebastian
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Possibly the simplest way for you to do this would be to use the WebClient class. Here's a quick sample:
private void SendFile(Uri address, string fileName)
{
using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
{
client.UploadFile(address, fileName);
}
}If you supply an HTTP address as the first parameter, POST is used. The beauty of this method is that it's clever enough to use STOR if the address is an FTP address, so you get the best of both worlds here. The address has to be the fully qualified URI of the resource to receive the file; this means you have to give it the full address - so if you were writing a file called myfile.csv to http://localhost:3040/, you would need to supply http://localhost:3040/myfile.csv.
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