Composite

In computer science, the composite pattern is a partitioning design pattern. Composite allows a group of objects to be treated in the same way as a single instance of an object. The intent of composite is to "compose" objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies. Composite lets clients treat individual objects and compositions uniformly.

 

When to use

Composite can be used when clients should ignore the difference between compositions of objects and individual objects. If programmers find that they are using multiple objects in the same way, and often have nearly identical code to handle each of them, then composite is a good choice; it is less complex in this situation to treat primitives and composites as homogeneous.

 

Structure

Composite pattern in UML.

Composite pattern in LePUS3.

Component

• is the abstraction for all components, including composite ones
• declares the interface for objects in the composition
• implements default behavior for the interface common to all classes, as appropriate
• declares an interface for accessing and managing its child components
• (optional) defines an interface for accessing a component's parent in the recursive structure, and implements it if that's appropriate

Leaf

• represents leaf objects in the composition
• implements all Component methods

Composite

• represents a composite Component (component having children)
• implements methods to manipulate children
• implements all Component methods, generally by delegating them to its children

Java :

The following example, written in Java, implements a graphic class, which can be either an ellipse or a composition of several graphics. Every graphic can be printed. In algebraic form,

       Graphic = ellipse | GraphicList
       GraphicList = empty | Graphic GraphicList

It could be extended to implement several other shapes (rectangle, etc.) and methods (translate, etc.).

import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
 
/** "Component" */
interface Graphic {
 
    //Prints the graphic.
    public void print();
 
}
 
/** "Composite" */
class CompositeGraphic implements Graphic {
 
    //Collection of child graphics.
    private List<Graphic> mChildGraphics = new ArrayList<Graphic>();
 
    //Prints the graphic.
    public void print() {
        for (Graphic graphic : mChildGraphics) {
            graphic.print();
        }
    }
 
    //Adds the graphic to the composition.
    public void add(Graphic graphic) {
        mChildGraphics.add(graphic);
    }
 
    //Removes the graphic from the composition.
    public void remove(Graphic graphic) {
        mChildGraphics.remove(graphic);
    }
 
}
 
 
/** "Leaf" */
class Ellipse implements Graphic {
 
    //Prints the graphic.
    public void print() {
        System.out.println("Ellipse");
    }
 
}
 
 
/** Client */
public class Program {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Initialize four ellipses
        Ellipse ellipse1 = new Ellipse();
        Ellipse ellipse2 = new Ellipse();
        Ellipse ellipse3 = new Ellipse();
        Ellipse ellipse4 = new Ellipse();
 
        //Initialize three composite graphics
        CompositeGraphic graphic = new CompositeGraphic();
        CompositeGraphic graphic1 = new CompositeGraphic();
        CompositeGraphic graphic2 = new CompositeGraphic();
 
        //Composes the graphics
        graphic1.add(ellipse1);
        graphic1.add(ellipse2);
        graphic1.add(ellipse3);
 
        graphic2.add(ellipse4);
 
        graphic.add(graphic1);
        graphic.add(graphic2);
 
        //Prints the complete graphic (four times the string "Ellipse").
        graphic.print();
    }
}