Creating a factory method in Java that doesn't rely on if-else

Question

Currently I have a method that acts as a factory based on a given String. For example:

public Animal createAnimal(String action)
{
    if (action.equals(\"M         


        

Answer 1

If you don't have to use Strings, you could use an enum type for the actions, and define an abstract factory method.

...
public enum Action {
    MEOW {
        @Override
        public Animal getAnimal() {
            return new Cat();
        }
    },

    WOOF {
        @Override
        public Animal getAnimal() {
            return new Dog();
        }
    };

    public abstract Animal getAnimal();
}

Then you can do things like:

...
Action action = Action.MEOW;
Animal animal = action.getAnimal();
...

It's kind of funky, but it works. This way the compiler will whine if you don't define getAnimal() for every action, and you can't pass in an action that doesn't exist.