Chain of responsability

Thursday, 20 January 2005 21:29

Avoid coupling the sender of a request to its receiver by giving more than one object a chance to handle the request. Chain the receiving objects and pass the request along the chain until an object handles it.

Source code

/**
 * Handles request it is responsible to.
 */
public class ConcreteHandler extends Handler {
        /**
  * Handle request or delegate it.
  */
        public void handleRequest() {
                boolean canProcessThisRequest = false;                if (canProcessThisRequest) {
                        // handle request if possible
                } else {
                        // pass it to the next in chain
                        super.handleRequest();                }
        }

}

/**
 * Defines interface for request handling
 * @role __Handler
 */
public class Handler {
        private Handler successor;        /** Default request handling */
        public void handleRequest() {
                if (successor != null) {
                        successor.handleRequest();                }
        }

        public Handler getSuccessor() {
                return this.successor;        }

        public void setSuccessor(Handler successor) {
                this.successor = successor;        }

}