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

Now you could use Java 8 constructor references and a functional interface.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.function.Supplier;

public class AnimalFactory {
    static final Map> constructorRefMap = new HashMap<>();

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        register("Meow", Cat::new);
        register("Woof", Dog::new);

        Animal a = createAnimal("Meow");
        System.out.println(a.whatAmI());
    }

    public static void register(String action, Supplier constructorRef) {
        constructorRefMap.put(action, constructorRef);
    }

    public static Animal createAnimal(String action) {
        return constructorRefMap.get(action).get();
    }
}

interface Animal {
    public String whatAmI();
}

class Dog implements Animal {
    @Override
    public String whatAmI() {
        return "I'm a dog";
    }
}

class Cat implements Animal {
    @Override
    public String whatAmI() {
        return "I'm a cat";
    }
}