Hands-On Design Patterns with C++

The Template Method Pattern and the Non-Virtual Idiom

The Template Method is one of the classic Gang of Four design patterns, or, more formally, one of the 24 patterns described in the book Design Patterns – Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides. It is a behavioral design pattern, meaning that it describes a way for communicating between different objects. As an object-oriented language, C++, of course, fully supports the Template Method pattern. There are some implementation details that are specific or unique to C++ that this chapter will elucidate.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• What is the Template Method pattern, and what problems does it ...