Another builder pattern for Java

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Whenever you have a domain object, data transfer object, parameter object or any other object that can’t be instantiated with constructor parameters only, you need to create a builder for its class.

The great thing about Java is that it is strongly (statically) typed so a builder can give you compiler errors if you forget to set the compulsory parameters. If you use the builder in this pattern, you also get a very fluent interface that imposes order on the parameters. When using the builder, your IDE will suggest the next parameter to set.

Update 2017-08-21: Due to the interest still being upheld for this old post, I have created a GitHub repository so that you can try out the different versions of builders. I also added one version where I use the prefixes “Required” and “Optional” for interfaces, based on a suggestion in the comments sections of this post. Thanks for commenting, all of you! The GitHub repository is here.

Update 2017-08-24: I have updated the post with a more complex example with nested builders. It is based on setting up a Http request and serves to illustrate how an API can be more supportive using this pattern. The inspiration comes from a reader. See end of post for more.

Update 2020-10-21: I found a plugin to IntelliJ that refers to this post. I am honored. Check out the Step Builder Generator: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/8637-step-builder-generator

Problem

An object is to be initialized and it takes a number of attributes to do that. Some of the attributes are compulsory while others are optional. You don’t want to set up a long parameter list as your clients may make mistakes by placing the arguments incorrectly.

Consider a class representing email message objects:

public class EmailMessage {

private String from;
private String to;
private String subject;
private String content;
private String mimeType;  // optional

public EmailMessage(String from, String to, String subject, String content) {
this(from, to, subject, content, null);
}

public EmailMessage(String from, String to, String subject, String content, String mimeType) {
this.from = from;
this.to = to;
this.subject = subject;
this.content = content;
this.mimeType = mimeType;
}

Now that will make it possible to make a mistake, although there is a natural order to the arguments.

new EmailMessage("gojko@example.com",
"me@crisp.se",
"hello comrade",
"some content");

Solution

To make it more readable, we could use a builder:

EmailMessage.builder()
.from("gojko@example.com")
.to("me@crisp.se")
.subject("hello comrade")
.content("Some content")
.build();

This makes it more obvious to anyone reading the client code about what is going on.

The implementation of the builder is an inner class.

private EmailMessage() {}

public static Builder builder() {
return new EmailMessage.Builder();
}

public static class Builder {
private EmailMessage instance = new EmailMessage();

private Builder() {
}

public Builder from(String from) {
instance.from = from;
return this;
}

public Builder to(String to) {
instance.to = to;
return this;
}

public Builder subject(String subject) {
instance.subject = subject;
return this;
}

public Builder content(String content) {
instance.content = content;
return this;
}

public Builder mimeType(String mimeTypeName) {
instance.mimeType = mimeTypeName;
return this;
}

public EmailMessage build() {
return instance;
}
}

However, this is version 1 and so looked my builders for long, what could be better?

Firstly, there are compulsory and optional parameters, so we must check that the compulsory are all there. We could use exceptions for that. A revised “Builder.build”:

public EmailMessage build() {
assert instance.from != null;
assert instance.to != null;
assert instance.subject != null;
assert instance.content != null;
return instance;
}

But that delays the feedback until runtime and if we can shorten a feedback loop we should. What if we could get it already at compile time ?

It is not impossible and it will give us a even more fluent interface IDE-wise, so to speak.

By using a series of internal interfaces that the Builder class implements, we set up a chain of methods that guides the client.

The picture shows how this looks in IntelliJ and it will be similar in Eclipse and Netbeans. Notice that the “from” method returns the interface “ITo”. That interface has one method.

public interface ITo {
ISubject to(String to);
}

Thus a chain is created where “from” returns “ITo” which method returns “ISubject” that has method that returns “IContent” that returns “IBuild”, the last interface.

The IBuild interface has the job of handling the optional parameter “mimeType” and creation of the now correctly instantiated object. Therefore, there is no method returning a IMimeType interface.

public interface IBuild {
IBuild mimeType(String mimeTypeName);

EmailMessage build();
}

The client code looks almost the same. We did not need to, but we skipped the “builder” method and hit the “from” method directly. Since we are leaning on the language rules, the IDE tells us immediately which static method we should use.

EmailMessage
.from("gojko@example.com")
.to("me@crisp.se")
.subject("hello comrade")
.content("Some content")
.build();

Although the end result looks almost the same to the client, the feedback is more immediate and it is quicker to select one method than among several. You can no longer do this mistake:

EmailMessage
.from("gojko@example.com")
.to("me@crisp.se")
.subject("hello comrade")
.from("Some content")            //compilation error
.build();

So there is version 2 of the builder pattern for you. A bit more work for you when defining your classes but it is healthy to think about what is optional and what is not. And your clients will thank you. Not to mention when you must add another compulsory attribute. All client code will stop compiling which is so much better than crashing in runtime.

Nested builders for better API

A reader, Kenneth Stoner, commented and asked about more complex examples. This inspired me to create an example for Http requests. A request (in this example) has an URL, headers and parameters. Header fields may be more than one and same goes for parameters. We wish to get a clean interface where it is obvious that you enumerate the headers you want and then the parameters for the request.

I solved that with nested classes with each having a nested Builder class. Here is how the client code looks.

HttpRequest request = HttpRequest
.url(SOME_URL)
.headers(HttpRequest.Headers
.header(ContentType, SOME_MIME_TYPE)
.header(SOME_CUSTOM_HEADER, SOME_CUSTOM_VALUE)
.build()
)
.parameters(HttpRequest.Parameters
.parameter(SOME_KEY, SOME_VALUE)
.parameter(SOME_KEY_2, SOME_VALUE_2)
.build())
.build();

The complete code is found in the GitHub repository.

Check out the test files also and notice how the tests became fewer when we did not rely on exceptions for checking that the required fields had been set.

Happy coding!