Design Patterns Java™ Workbook

Chapter 18. Prototype

As a class developer, you ordinarily furnish your class with constructors to let client applications instantiate it. The construction-oriented patterns covered so far—BUILDER, FACTORY METHOD, and ABSTRACT FACTORY—isolate the user of an object from this constructor call. These patterns establish methods that instantiate an appropriate class on a client's behalf. The PROTOTYPE pattern also conceals object creation from clients but uses a different approach. Instead of bringing forth new, uninitialized instances of a class, the intent of the PROTOTYPE pattern is to provide new objects by copying an example.