Pro Design Patterns in Swift

Chapter    5

The Prototype Pattern

In this chapter I describe the prototype pattern, in which you create new objects by copying an existing object, known as the prototype. The prototype itself is created using a template, as described in Chapter 4, but subsequent instances are clones. Table 5-1 puts the prototype pattern in context.

Table 5-1. Putting the Prototype Pattern into Context

Question	Answer
What is it?	The prototype pattern creates new objects by copying an existing object, known as the prototype.
What are the benefits?	The main benefit is to hide the code that creates objects from the components that use them; this means that components don’t need to know which class or struct is required to create a new object, don’t need to know the ...