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Arunmozhi
Arunmozhi

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How to simplify a complex factory pattern?

I have a function which takes the incoming request, parses the data and performs an action and posts the results to a webhook. This is running as background as a Celery Task. This function is a common interface for about a dozen Processors, so can be said to follow the Factory Pattern. Here is the psuedo code:

processors = {
    "action_1": ProcessorClass1, 
    "action_2": ProcessorClass2,
    ...
}

def run_task(action, input_file, *args, **kwargs):
    # Get the input file from a URL
    log = create_logitem()
    try:
        file = get_input_file(input_file)
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # process the input file
    try:
        processor = processors[action](file)
        results = processor.execute()
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # upload the results to another location
    try:
        upload_result_file(results.file)
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # Post the log about the entire process to a webhoook
    post_results_to_webhook(log)

This has been working well for most part as the the inputs were restricted to action and a single argument (input_file). As the software has grown, the processors have increased and the input arguments have started to vary. All the new arguments are passed as keyword arguments and the logic has become more like this.

try:
    input_file = get_input_file(input_file)
    if action == "action_2":
       input_file_2 = get_input_file(kwargs.get("input_file_2"))
except:
    log.status = "failure"


try:
    processor = processors[action](file)
    if action == "action_1":
        extra_argument = kwargs.get("extra_argument")
        results = processor.execute(extra_argument)
    elif action == "action_2":
        extra_1 = kwargs.get("extra_1")
        extra_2 = kwargs.get("extra_2")
        results = processor.execute(input_file_2, extra_1, extra_2)
    else:
        results = processor.execute()
except:
    log.status = "Failure"

Adding the if conditions for a couple of things didn't make a difference, but now almost 6 of the 11 processors have extra inputs specific to them and the code is starting to look complex and I am not sure how to simplify it. Or if at all I should attempt at simplifying it.

Something I have considered:

  1. Create a separate task for the processors with extra inputs - But this would mean, I will be repeating the file fetching, logging, result upload and webhook code in each task.
  2. Moving the file download and argument parsing into the BaseProcessor - This is not possible as the processor is used in other contexts without the file download and webhooks as well.

Update:
The title was changed to better describe the situation.

Top comments (3)

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tecoholic profile image
Arunmozhi

I solved it by making two important changes:

  1. Normalised the processor's by making the common arguments positional and everything else keyword based. This allows me to pass the kwargs as I receive them without unpacking. It is the processor's job.
  2. For the extra files, make a copy of the kwargs and replace the remote file url with the local file location. This way, the extra files are a part of the kwargs dict itself.
def run_task(action, input_file, *args, **kwargs):

    params = kwargs.copy()

    # Get the input file from a URL
    log = create_logitem()
    try:
        file = get_input_file(input_file)
        if action == "action_2":
           params["extra_file"] = get_input_file(kwargs["extra_file"]  # update the files in params
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # process the input file
    try:
        processor = processors[action](file)
        results = processor.execute(**params)   # Unpack and pass the params
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # upload the results to another location
    try:
        upload_result_file(results.file)
    except:
        log.status = "Failure"

    # Post the log about the entire process to a webhoook
    post_results_to_webhook(log)

Now I have the same lean structure as I originally had. The only processor specific code is the file downloads which I think I can live with for now.

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tecoholic profile image
Arunmozhi

Very interesting solution. I didn't know there existed dispatcher wrappers. I will try it out and see if it make simplifies the code. Thank you.

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tecoholic profile image
Arunmozhi

I have asked the question in Stack Exchange as well and was offered a simple solution which involves minimal rewrite. Here softwareengineering.stackexchange....