mirror of
https://github.com/rjNemo/design-patterns
synced 2026-06-06 02:26:40 +00:00
44 lines
No EOL
4.1 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
No EOL
4.1 KiB
Markdown
# Template Method
|
||
|
||
Template Method is a behavioral design pattern that defines the skeleton of an algorithm in the superclass but lets subclasses override specific steps of the algorithm without changing its structure.
|
||
|
||
## Problem
|
||
|
||
Imagine that you’re creating a data mining application that analyzes corporate documents. Users feed the app documents in various formats (PDF, DOC, CSV), and it tries to extract meaningful data from these docs in a uniform format.
|
||
|
||
The first version of the app could work only with DOC files. In the following version, it was able to support CSV files. A month later, you “taught” it to extract data from PDF files.
|
||
|
||
At some point, you noticed that all three classes have a lot of similar code. While the code for dealing with various data formats was entirely different in all classes, the code for data processing and analysis is almost identical. Wouldn't it be great to get rid of the code duplication, leaving the algorithm structure intact?
|
||
|
||
There was another problem related to client code that used these classes. It had lots of conditionals that picked a proper course of action depending on the class of the processing object. If all three processing classes had a common interface or a base class, you’d be able to eliminate the conditionals in client code and use polymorphism when calling methods on a processing object.
|
||
|
||
|
||
## Solution
|
||
|
||
The Template Method pattern suggests that you break down an algorithm into a series of steps, turn these steps into methods, and put a series of calls to these methods inside a single template method. The steps may either be `abstract`, or have some default implementation. To use the algorithm, the client is supposed to provide its own subclass, implement all abstract steps, and override some of the optional ones if needed (but not the template method itself).
|
||
|
||
Let’s see how this will play out in our data mining app. We can create a base class for all three parsing algorithms. This class defines a template method consisting of a series of calls to various document-processing steps.
|
||
|
||
At first, we can declare all steps `abstract`, forcing the subclasses to provide their own implementations for these methods. In our case, subclasses already have all necessary implementations, so the only thing we might need to do is adjust signatures of the methods to match the methods of the superclass.
|
||
|
||
Now, let’s see what we can do to get rid of the duplicate code. It looks like the code for opening/closing files and extracting/parsing data is different for various data formats, so there’s no point in touching those methods. However, implementation of other steps, such as analyzing the raw data and composing reports, is very similar, so it can be pulled up into the base class, where subclasses can share that code.
|
||
|
||
As you can see, we’ve got two types of steps:
|
||
|
||
- abstract steps must be implemented by every subclass
|
||
- optional steps already have some default implementation, but still can be overridden if needed
|
||
|
||
There’s another type of step, called hooks. A hook is an optional step with an empty body. A template method would
|
||
work even if a hook isn’t overridden. Usually, hooks are placed before and after crucial steps of algorithms, providing subclasses with additional extension points for an algorithm.
|
||
|
||
## How to Implement
|
||
|
||
1. Analyze the target algorithm to see whether you can break it into steps. Consider which steps are common to all subclasses and which ones will always be unique.
|
||
|
||
1. Create the abstract base class and declare the template method and a set of abstract methods representing the algorithm’s steps. Outline the algorithm’s structure in the template method by executing corresponding steps. Consider making the template method final to prevent subclasses from overriding it.
|
||
|
||
1. It’s okay if all the steps end up being abstract. However, some steps might benefit from having a default implementation. Subclasses don’t have to implement those methods.
|
||
|
||
1. Think of adding hooks between the crucial steps of the algorithm.
|
||
|
||
1. For each variation of the algorithm, create a new concrete subclass. It must implement all of the abstract steps, but may also override some of the optional ones. |