factory v/s abstract factory

Abstract Factory - provide an interface for crreating families of related or dependant objects without specifying their concrete classes

Factory Metod - define an interface for creating an object, but let subclasses decide which class to instantiate. Factory Method lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses.

can you please give a short example.

thanks for prompt res,
J

AF - a gui toolkit could use this pattern to create widgets, the abstract factory would define methods for creating various types of widgets avaiolable. Each L&F (eg. Windows, Motif) would provide an implementation of this factory to return the widget subclass for that l&f thus making the client independant of the l&f

FM - an application framework that deals with different document types. In this case the particulkar Document type to create is application specific and the framework has no way of knowing what type of document is to be created (it only knows about abstract document class). So instead application subclasses redefine the factory method to return the appropriate document subclass.

Have a look at these discussions:

http://www.jguru.com/forums/view.jsp?EID=1222908

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbstractFactoryVsFactoryMethod

http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/patterns-discussion/2003-October/000068.html

>> please do not redirect me to websites such as      

I could've copy-pasted the whole stuff, but actually there's good explanation there :)

"provide an interface for crreating families of related or dependant objects without specifying their concrete classes"

That's why i told you earlier (largely ignored) your abstract soup factory should not be instantiating (or promising to instantiate) concrete soups

I thought objects also deserved some points here.

is it? my appologies to you( and objects) if i was wrong in judging points. actually the pdf which sanjusk gave me was clear with easy to understand examples.

thanks
J