Which statement best describes the Factory Method pattern?

Which statement best describes the Factory Method pattern?

• A. Delegates object creation to subclasses or providers, decoupling creation from usage.
• B. Enforces a single instance across the application.
• C. Wraps an object to add responsibilities.
• D. Converts one interface into another.

Answer: (A)

Object creation is delegated to subclasses through a factory method, decoupling how objects are created from how they’re used. In this pattern, a creator defines a factory method that returns a product interface. Subclasses override that method to instantiate and return a concrete product. The client code uses the product via its interface, unaware of which concrete class was created. This makes it easy to introduce new products by adding new subclasses without changing the code that uses them, keeping creation isolated from usage. This isn’t about ensuring a single instance (that’s the singleton idea), nor about wrapping an object to add behavior (the decorator idea), nor about converting one interface into another (the adapter idea).

Object creation is delegated to subclasses through a factory method, decoupling how objects are created from how they’re used. In this pattern, a creator defines a factory method that returns a product interface. Subclasses override that method to instantiate and return a concrete product. The client code uses the product via its interface, unaware of which concrete class was created. This makes it easy to introduce new products by adding new subclasses without changing the code that uses them, keeping creation isolated from usage.

This isn’t about ensuring a single instance (that’s the singleton idea), nor about wrapping an object to add behavior (the decorator idea), nor about converting one interface into another (the adapter idea).