Class factory in Python

I think using a function is fine.

The more interesting question is how do you determine which registrar to load? One option is to have an abstract base Registrar class which concrete implementations subclass, then iterate over its __subclasses__() calling an is_registrar_for() class method:

class Registrar(object):
  def __init__(self, domain):
    self.domain = domain

class RegistrarA(Registrar):
  @classmethod
  def is_registrar_for(cls, domain):
    return domain == 'foo.com'

class RegistrarB(Registrar):
  @classmethod
  def is_registrar_for(cls, domain):
    return domain == 'bar.com'


def Domain(domain):
  for cls in Registrar.__subclasses__():
    if cls.is_registrar_for(domain):
      return cls(domain)
  raise ValueError


print Domain('foo.com')
print Domain('bar.com')

This will let you transparently add new Registrars and delegate the decision of which domains each supports, to them.

Assuming you need separate classes for different registrars (though it's not obvious in your example) your solution looks okay, though RegistrarA and RegistrarB probably share functionality and could be derived from an Abstract Base Class.

As an alternative to your factory function, you could specify a dict, mapping to your registrar classes:

Registrar = {'test.com': RegistrarA, 'test.biz': RegistrarB}

Then:

registrar = Registrar['test.com'](domain)

One quibble: You're not really doing a Class Factory here as you're returning instances rather than classes.

In Python you can change the actual class directly:

class Domain(object):
  def __init__(self, domain):
    self.domain = domain
    if ...:
      self.__class__ = RegistrarA
    else:
      self.__class__ = RegistrarB

And then following will work.

com = Domain('test.com') #load RegistrarA
com.lookup()

I'm using this approach successfully.

You can create a 'wrapper' class and overload its __new__() method to return instances of the specialized sub-classes, e.g.:

class Registrar(object):
    def __new__(self, domain):
        if ...:
            return RegistrarA(domain)
        elif ...:
            return RegistrarB(domain)
        else:
            raise Exception()

Additionally, in order to deal with non-mutually exclusive conditions, an issue that was raised in other answers, the first question to ask yourself is whether you want the wrapper class, which plays the role of a dispatcher, to govern the conditions, or it will delegate it to the specialized classes. I can suggest a shared mechanism, where the specialized classes define their own conditions, but the wrapper does the validation, like this (provided that each specialized class exposes a class method that verifies whether it is a registrar for a particular domain, is_registrar_for(...) as suggested in other answers):

class Registrar(object):
    registrars = [RegistrarA, RegistrarB]
    def __new__(self, domain):
        matched_registrars = [r for r in self.registrars if r.is_registrar_for(domain)]

        if len(matched_registrars) > 1:
            raise Exception('More than one registrar matched!')
        elif len(matched_registrars) < 1:
            raise Exception('No registrar was matched!')
        else:
            return matched_registrars[0](domain)

I have this problem all the time. If you have the classes embedded in your application (and its modules) then you can use a function; but if you load plugins dynamically, you need something more dynamic -- registering the classes with a factory via metaclasses automatically.

Here is a pattern I'm sure I lifted from StackOverflow originally, but I don't still have the path to the original post

_registry = {}

class PluginType(type):
    def __init__(cls, name, bases, attrs):
        _registry[name] = cls
        return super(PluginType, cls).__init__(name, bases, attrs)

class Plugin(object):
    __metaclass__  = PluginType # python <3.0 only 
    def __init__(self, *args):
        pass

def load_class(plugin_name, plugin_dir):
    plugin_file = plugin_name + ".py"
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(plugin_dir) :
        if plugin_file in (s for s in files if s.endswith('.py')) :
            fp, pathname, description = imp.find_module(plugin_name, [root])
            try:
                mod = imp.load_module(plugin_name, fp, pathname, description)
            finally:
                if fp:
                    fp.close()
    return

def get_class(plugin_name) :
    t = None
    if plugin_name in _registry:
        t = _registry[plugin_name]
    return t

def get_instance(plugin_name, *args):
    return get_class(plugin_name)(*args)

how about something like

class Domain(object):
  registrars = []

  @classmethod
  def add_registrar( cls, reg ):
    registrars.append( reg )

  def __init__( self, domain ):
    self.domain = domain
    for reg in self.__class__.registrars:
       if reg.is_registrar_for( domain ):
          self.registrar = reg  
  def lookup( self ):
     return self.registrar.lookup()    

Domain.add_registrar( RegistrarA )
Domain.add_registrar( RegistrarB )

com = Domain('test.com')
com.lookup()

Here a metaclass implicitly collects Registars Classes in an ENTITIES dict

class DomainMeta(type):
    ENTITIES = {}

    def __new__(cls, name, bases, attrs):
        cls = type.__new__(cls, name, bases, attrs)
        try:
            entity = attrs['domain']
            cls.ENTITIES[entity] = cls
        except KeyError:
            pass
        return cls

class Domain(metaclass=DomainMeta):
    @classmethod
    def factory(cls, domain):
        return DomainMeta.ENTITIES[domain]()

class RegistrarA(Domain):
    domain = 'test.com'
    def lookup(self):
        return 'Custom command for .com TLD'

class RegistrarB(Domain):
    domain = 'test.biz'
    def lookup(self):
        return 'Custom command for .biz TLD'


com = Domain.factory('test.com')
type(com)       # <class '__main__.RegistrarA'>
com.lookup()    # 'Custom command for .com TLD'

com = Domain.factory('test.biz')
type(com)       # <class '__main__.RegistrarB'>
com.lookup()    # 'Custom command for .biz TLD'