Introduction
This post gives a brief overview about the Decorator Pattern. The post is part of a series about software design patterns and their UML representations with the help of PlantUML. The article aims at providing a very short description of the general idea of the pattern in the first part. This also involves a descriptive UML diagram. Then, the second part provides the PlantUML code for the diagram so that these posts can also be used as a source of design patterns in PlantUML syntax.
What is the Decorator Pattern?
According to Wikipedia, the decorator pattern is a design pattern that allows behavior to be added to an individual object, either statically or dynamically, without affecting the behavior of other objects from the same class. The decorator pattern is often useful for adhering to the Single Responsibility Principle, as it allows functionality to be divided between classes with unique areas of concern.
UML Diagram
The following diagram shows the Decorator Pattern in UML notation. It is based on the corresponding chapter in the book “Head First Design Patterns“:
You can click on the diagram to open it online in Pladitor.
Diagram Sources
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| @startuml
hide empty fields
class Component
class ConcreteComponent
class Decorator
class ConcreteDecoratorA
class ConcreteDecoratorB
Component : methodA()
Component : methodB()
Component : // otherMethods()
ConcreteComponent : methodA()
ConcreteComponent : methodB()
ConcreteComponent : // otherMethods()
Decorator : methodA()
Decorator : methodB()
Decorator : // otherMethods()
ConcreteDecoratorA : Component wrappedObject
ConcreteDecoratorA : methodA()
ConcreteDecoratorA : methodB()
ConcreteDecoratorA : newBehavior()
ConcreteDecoratorA : // otherMethods()
ConcreteDecoratorB : Component wrappedObject
ConcreteDecoratorB : Object newState
ConcreteDecoratorB : methodA()
ConcreteDecoratorB : methodB()
ConcreteDecoratorB : // otherMethods()
Component <|-- ConcreteComponent
Component <|- Decorator
Decorator <|-- ConcreteDecoratorA
Decorator <|-- ConcreteDecoratorB
Component <- Decorator : component
note top of Component
Each component can be used on its
own, or wrapped by a decorator
component
end note
note bottom of ConcreteComponent
The ConreteComponent
is the object we are going
to dynamically add new
behavior to it. It extends
Component.
end note
note top of Decorator
Decorators implement the
same interface or abstract
class as the component they
are going to decorate.
end note
note bottom of ConcreteDecoratorB
Decorators can extend the
state of the component
end note
note bottom of ConcreteDecoratorB
Decorators can add new methods;
however, new behavior is typically
added by doing computation
before or after an existing method
in the component.
end note
note bottom of ConcreteDecoratorA
The ConcreteDecorator has an
instance variable for the thing
it decorates (the Component the
Decorator wraps).
end note
@enduml
|
Open this diagram online with Pladitor.