Software Architecture Design Patterns in Java

17 FLYWEIGHT

This pattern was previously described in GoF95.

DESCRIPTION

Every object can be viewed as consisting of one or both of the following two sets of information:

1. Intrinsic Information — The intrinsic information of an object is independent of the object context. That means the intrinsic information is the common information that remains constant among different instances of a given class. For example, the company information on a visiting card is the same for all employees.
2. Extrinsic Information — The extrinsic information of an object is dependent upon and varies with the object context. That means the extrinsic information is unique for every instance of a given class. For example, the employee name and title are extrinsic on a ...