GoF Design Patterns – Template Method Design Pattern

Overview

The Template Method Design Pattern is a behavioral pattern that provides a way to define the skeleton of an algorithm in a base class and allows subclasses to override some steps of the algorithm. This pattern is useful when you have a set of algorithms with similar main steps but different implementation details.

The Template Method Design Pattern uses inheritance to create a common template that can be customized by subclasses. General steps of the algorithm are defined in a base class and subclasses provide specific steps implementation details.

For example, let’s say we want to create a reporting system that supports reports generated in different formats, like HTML, PDF, and TXT. Each report generation follows the same steps:

  • Open the report
  • Create header
  • Create body
  • Create footer
  • Close the report

Implementation details on header, body, and footer creation are different. However, the main flow of steps in creating a report is the same. Therefore, we can use the Template Method Design Pattern to decompose this problem using Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) paradigm.

More on this pattern…

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