Can factory methods return multiple instances?

Question

It is a factory method if it returns an instance of a class but is it a factory method if it returns multiple (an array of) instances?

Answer 1

If you need it to return multiple instances, then do it, regardless of how it is called. I would say it is indeed a factory method, but this doesn't matter that much.

Perhaps you can have a factory method for returning a single instance, and then another one that calls the first one multiple times.