Design Patterns - Filter Pattern

Filter pattern or Criteria pattern is a design pattern that enables developers to filter a set of objects using different criteria and chaining them in a decoupled way through logical operations. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern combines multiple criteria to obtain single criteria.

Implementation

We're going to create a Person object, Criteria interface and concrete classes implementing this interface to filter list of Person objects. CriteriaPatternDemo, our demo class uses Criteria objects to filter List of Person objects based on various criteria and their combinations.

Step 1

Create a class on which criteria is to be applied.

Person.java

public class Person {
 
   private String name;
   private String gender;
   private String maritalStatus;

   public Person(String name, String gender, String maritalStatus){
      this.name = name;
      this.gender = gender;
      this.maritalStatus = maritalStatus;  
   }

   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }
   public String getGender() {
      return gender;
   }
   public String getMaritalStatus() {
      return maritalStatus;
   } 
}

Step 2

Create an interface for Criteria.

Criteria.java

import java.util.List;

public interface Criteria {
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons);
}

Step 3

Create concrete classes implementing the Criteria interface.

CriteriaMale.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CriteriaMale implements Criteria {

   @Override
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons) {
      List<Person> malePersons = new ArrayList<Person>(); 
      
      for (Person person : persons) {
         if(person.getGender().equalsIgnoreCase("MALE")){
            malePersons.add(person);
         }
      }
      return malePersons;
   }
}

CriteriaFemale.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CriteriaFemale implements Criteria {

   @Override
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons) {
      List<Person> femalePersons = new ArrayList<Person>(); 
      
      for (Person person : persons) {
         if(person.getGender().equalsIgnoreCase("FEMALE")){
            femalePersons.add(person);
         }
      }
      return femalePersons;
   }
}

CriteriaSingle.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CriteriaSingle implements Criteria {

   @Override
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons) {
      List<Person> singlePersons = new ArrayList<Person>(); 
      
      for (Person person : persons) {
         if(person.getMaritalStatus().equalsIgnoreCase("SINGLE")){
            singlePersons.add(person);
         }
      }
      return singlePersons;
   }
}

AndCriteria.java

import java.util.List;

public class AndCriteria implements Criteria {

   private Criteria criteria;
   private Criteria otherCriteria;

   public AndCriteria(Criteria criteria, Criteria otherCriteria) {
      this.criteria = criteria;
      this.otherCriteria = otherCriteria; 
   }

   @Override
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons) {
   
      List<Person> firstCriteriaPersons = criteria.meetCriteria(persons);  
      return otherCriteria.meetCriteria(firstCriteriaPersons);
   }
}

OrCriteria.java

import java.util.List;

public class OrCriteria implements Criteria {

   private Criteria criteria;
   private Criteria otherCriteria;

   public OrCriteria(Criteria criteria, Criteria otherCriteria) {
      this.criteria = criteria;
      this.otherCriteria = otherCriteria; 
   }

   @Override
   public List<Person> meetCriteria(List<Person> persons) {
      List<Person> firstCriteriaItems = criteria.meetCriteria(persons);
      List<Person> otherCriteriaItems = otherCriteria.meetCriteria(persons);

      for (Person person : otherCriteriaItems) {
         if(!firstCriteriaItems.contains(person)){
            firstCriteriaItems.add(person);
         }
      } 
      return firstCriteriaItems;
   }
}

Step4

Use different Criteria and their combination to filter out persons.

CriteriaPatternDemo.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CriteriaPatternDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      List<Person> persons = new ArrayList<Person>();

      persons.add(new Person("Robert","Male", "Single"));
      persons.add(new Person("John", "Male", "Married"));
      persons.add(new Person("Laura", "Female", "Married"));
      persons.add(new Person("Diana", "Female", "Single"));
      persons.add(new Person("Mike", "Male", "Single"));
      persons.add(new Person("Bobby", "Male", "Single"));

      Criteria male = new CriteriaMale();
      Criteria female = new CriteriaFemale();
      Criteria single = new CriteriaSingle();
      Criteria singleMale = new AndCriteria(single, male);
      Criteria singleOrFemale = new OrCriteria(single, female);

      System.out.println("Males: ");
      printPersons(male.meetCriteria(persons));

      System.out.println("\nFemales: ");
      printPersons(female.meetCriteria(persons));

      System.out.println("\nSingle Males: ");
      printPersons(singleMale.meetCriteria(persons));

      System.out.println("\nSingle Or Females: ");
      printPersons(singleOrFemale.meetCriteria(persons));
   }

   public static void printPersons(List<Person> persons){
   
      for (Person person : persons) {
         System.out.println("Person : [ Name : " + person.getName() + ", Gender : " + person.getGender() + ", Marital Status : " + person.getMaritalStatus() + " ]");
      }
   }      
}

Step 5

Verify the output.

Males: 
Person : [ Name : Robert, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : John, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Married ]
Person : [ Name : Mike, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Bobby, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]

Females: 
Person : [ Name : Laura, Gender : Female, Marital Status : Married ]
Person : [ Name : Diana, Gender : Female, Marital Status : Single ]

Single Males: 
Person : [ Name : Robert, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Mike, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Bobby, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]

Single Or Females: 
Person : [ Name : Robert, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Diana, Gender : Female, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Mike, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Bobby, Gender : Male, Marital Status : Single ]
Person : [ Name : Laura, Gender : Female, Marital Status : Married ]