Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Chapter 4. Structural Patterns

Structural patterns are concerned with how classes and objects are composed to form larger structures. Structural class patterns use inheritance to compose interfaces or implementations. As a simple example, consider how multiple inheritance mixes two or more classes into one. The result is a class that combines the properties of its parent classes. This pattern is particularly useful for making independently developed class libraries work together. Another example is the class form of the Adapter (139) pattern. In general, an adapter makes one interface (the adaptee’s) conform to another, thereby providing a uniform abstraction of different interfaces. A class adapter accomplishes this by inheriting privately ...