Strategy Pattern

Conception

• Strategy pattern (also known as the policy pattern) design pattern that enables an algorithm’s behavior to be selected at runtime.

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Intent

• Define a family of algorithms, encapsulate each one, and make them interchangeable.
• Strategy lets the algorithm vary independently from the clients that use it.
• Capture the abstraction in an interface, bury implementation details in derived classes.

Example

• Here is the link Duck example

It has structure like this:

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The most important part of code should like this:

Duck model = new ModelDuck();
model.performFly();
model.setFlyBehavior(new FlyRocketPowered());
model.performFly();

As you can see, we encapsulate the fly behavior(FlyRocketPowered) algorithm and set a method setFlyBehavior so you guys can change the behavior. The model was like a Context object which is in charge of interaction with Strategy class. So as this way, you can avoid most “if-else” of “switch”, you know what is my mean.

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Advantages

• Define a lot of algorithms to make the them can change easily.
• To avoid much duplicate code.
• To make it has good extension function.

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Problems

• The caller must understand the difference between each strategy and choose which strategy to use.
• Can not Nested calls, since it suit for flat algorithm structure.
• Add too much objects.

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Where

• The class need to select one algorithm for dynamtic
• The only differences between these classes is the behavior.
• Keep the algorithm security and do not want the client know more about the complex data structure.