Is there anything wrong with my Factory class?

Question

class PieceFactory {     
     @SuppressWarnings("rawtypes")
     public Piece createPiece(String pieceType) throws Throwable{
        Class pieceClass = Class.forName(pieceType);
        Piece piece = (Piece) pieceClass.newInstance();

         return piece;       
     }
}

I'm not all used to handling exceptions yet therefore I'm just throwing them, but everywhere I use a method that uses this factory it tells me I have to throw exceptions like throwable.

For example, in one of my classes I have a method that instantiates a lot of objects using the method that uses the factory. I can use the method in that class by just throwing the exception, however it won't work if I try to pass a reference to that class to another class and then use the method from there. Then it forces me to try catch the exception.

I probably don't need a factory but it seemed interesting and I'd like to try to use patterns. The reason I created the factory was that I have 6 subclasses of Piece and I wan't to use a method to instantiate them by passing the type of subclass I want as an argument to the method.

Answer 1

You are trying to reflectively create a Piece object.

Class.forName() throws ClassNotFoundException, while Class.newInstance() throws InstantiationException, IllegalAccessException (hence why you need to throw Throwable.

A better way to create an object through class types is probably by doing the following:

class PieceFactory {     

    public Piece createPiece(String pieceType) throws Throwable{
        Piece piece = null;

        if ("SubPiece1".equals(pieceType)) {
            piece = new SubPiece1();
        } else if ("SubPiece2".equals(pieceType)) {
            piece = new SubPiece2();
        }

        return piece;       
    }
}

PS, it's untested, just showing a better way to do it.

Hope this helps! :)