Decorator pattern example

Question

I was going through the Decorator design pattern and saw that every second example uses an Abstract decorator class and also implement the interface of the class for which decorator is to be created. My question is,

Is it necessary to have an abstract decorator class and then define the concrete decorators ?

I have created a sample which i think can resemble the functionality which is being achieved by the above mentioned Abstract class approach.

 public interface ICarModel { Int32 Price { get; } Int32 Tax { get; } } public class BaseModel : ICarModel { public Int32 Price { get { return 50000; } } public Int32 Tax { get { return 5000; } } public String GetBaseCarDetails() { return "Base car model Price is : " + this.Price + " and Tax is : " + this.Tax; } } public class LuxuryModel { ICarModel _iCarModel; public LuxuryModel(ICarModel iCarModel) { _iCarModel = iCarModel; } public Int32 Price { get { return _iCarModel.Price + 10000; } } public Int32 Tax { get { return _iCarModel.Tax + 3000; } } public String GetLuxuryCarDetails() { return "Luxury car model Price is : " + this.Price + " and Tax is : " + this.Tax; } }

Can we say that this is an example of the decorator pattern ?

@yannishristofakis as far as I know the get{ } property is exclusive to C#. Not sure though. — Fendy
– Fendy, Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 11:58
@Kalyan, it seems to be the same question, but unfortunately, I am not able to interpret the exact meaning that he is trying to explain here. Can u throw some light on this explanation ? — Tech Jay
– Tech Jay, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 14:15

giannis christofakis · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-23 21:27:15Z

3

Update

Do we really need to make the decorator as abstract class ?

I guess you could avoid abstract but then you would have to write the same code for all your classes. The purpose of abstract is to avoid redundant code and insure that your classes comply to the same logic. Also it is easier to maintain and scale.

Decorator Pattern

edited Nov 23, 2013 at 21:27

answered Nov 21, 2013 at 16:23

giannis christofakis

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4 Comments

Tech Jay Over a year ago

Thanks Yanis. This may be an implementation in decorator pattern. Actually my point was do we really need to make the decorator as abstract class ?

giannis christofakis Over a year ago

@TechJay I made an explanation, I hope it make sense.

Tech Jay Over a year ago

as per your comment, i think if we use the interfaces and DI, there won't be any redundant code. We just need to pass the appropriate dependency using interfaces container.

giannis christofakis Over a year ago

@TechJay As I told you it's not necessary, but it's consider best practice therefor it's a design pattern. If you have one model there isn't a big deal. But if you have a lot and many methods too implement an abstract class becomes handy. What DI stands for? Dependency injection?

Martin Cron · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-25 02:17:04Z

The intent of the decorator pattern is simply to extend the behavior of an existing type in such a way that consumers of that type don't need to know the implementation details of how it has changed.

There's no requirement for any of the types to be abstract. You can do this with interfaces or with virtual methods on concrete classes.

You mean we could have used the Dependency injection & interfaces to inject the appropriate base functionality and extended it ?
+1 consumers of that type don't need to know the implementation details

themanwhosoldtheworld · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-23 19:05:39Z

Model1 is a decorator which delegates a part of its 'getPrice' logic to the decoree 'CarModel'

class Model1 implements IModel { IModel m_model; Model1(CarModel model){ m_model = model; } public int getPrice(){ return m_model.getPrice() + getModelSpecificPrice(); } protected int getModelSpecificPrice(){ return 10; } }

But what if there are Model2, Model3 etc., whose logic of 'getPrice' method is the same?

In such cases it makes sense to create an Abstract decorator

class AbstractModel implements IModel{ IModel m_model; AbstractModel(CarModel model){ m_model = model; } public int getPrice(){ return m_model.getPrice() + getModelSpecificPrice(); } abstract protected int getModelSpecificPrice(); } class Model1 extends AbstractModel { Model1(CarModel model){ super(model); } protected int getModelSpecificPrice(){ return 10; } }

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