Question:
I'm building an emailing system for a framework I'm developing. Thus far, I've got a generic MailMessage interface that every different type of email message will implement, something along the lines of
public interface MailMessage { public String[] getTo(); public void setTo(String[] to); public String getFrom(); public void setFrom(String from); ... // you can guess the setters/getters here ... } I've then got a SimpleMailMessage that's exactly what you would expect as a simple implementation of the interface (no encryption or encoding, just plain text).
I've created an MailMessageFactory interface that's used as an abstract factory. I've got a SimpleMailMessageFactory that implements the factory to produce instances of SimpleMailMessage.
One type of email I'd like to the framework to send is an Alert mail message, that is essentially a regular mail message except with "[Alert]" prefixed to the subject line (Another might be a email containing a "list" of order items, but I'm not sure of where the responsibility falls for converting the list to a String for an email lies). I can either subclass the SimpleMailMessage and override the setSubject(String subject) method to something like
public class AlertMailMessage { ... public void setSuject(String subject) { this.to = "[Alert]" + to; } ... } Or I can create a decorator:
public abstract class EmailDecorator implements MailMessage { protected MailMessage email; ... // delegate all implemented methods to email ... } public class AlertEmailDecorator extends EmailDecorator { public void setSubject(String subject) { email.setSubject("[Alert]" + subject); } } Or I can just delegate adding the "[Alert]" string in the SimpleMailMessageFactory.
Thoughts on what I have? I think the problem is that I might be too thoughtful and forward-thinking, but I want the perfect design.
Solution:1
A decorator seems a better option to me. I am thinking of, may be you need to append your subject line with, Fwd: or Re: as well, or may be you need to support signature where you will be adding a signature to the email body.
Solution:2
The decorator seems like the better option. However, why are you writing your own email framework for Java? Why not just use the JavaMail API?
Solution:3
Sounds just like the Spring's support for JavaMail. Don't reinvent the wheel, use already existing, proven solutions, and build on top of that.
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