Design Patterns

Design patterns are solutions to software design problems you find again and again in real-world application development. Patterns are about reusable designs and interactions of objects.

The 23 Gang of Four (GoF) patterns are generally considered the foundation for all other patterns. They are categorized in three groups: Creational, Structural, and Behavioral (for a complete list see below).

To give you a head start, the C# source code for each pattern is provided in 2 forms: structural and real-world. Structural code uses type names as defined in the pattern definition and UML diagrams. Real-world code provides real-world programming situations where you may use these patterns.

A third form, .NET optimized, demonstrates design patterns that fully exploit built-in .NET 4.5 features, such as, generics, attributes, delegates, reflection, and more. These and much more are available in our .NET Design Pattern Framework 4.5. You can see the Singletonpage for a .NET 4.5 Optimized example.

Creational Patterns
Abstract Factory	Creates an instance of several families of classes
Builder	Separates object construction from its representation
Factory Method	Creates an instance of several derived classes
Prototype	A fully initialized instance to be copied or cloned
Singleton	A class of which only a single instance can exist

Structural Patterns
Adapter	Match interfaces of different classes
Bridge	Separates an object’s interface from its implementation
Composite	A tree structure of simple and composite objects
Decorator	Add responsibilities to objects dynamically
Facade	A single class that represents an entire subsystem
Flyweight	A fine-grained instance used for efficient sharing
Proxy	An object representing another object

Behavioral Patterns
Chain of Resp.	A way of passing a request between a chain of objects
Command	Encapsulate a command request as an object
Interpreter	A way to include language elements in a program
Iterator	Sequentially access the elements of a collection
Mediator	Defines simplified communication between classes
Memento	Capture and restore an object's internal state
Observer	A way of notifying change to a number of classes
State	Alter an object's behavior when its state changes
Strategy	Encapsulates an algorithm inside a class
Template Method	Defer the exact steps of an algorithm to a subclass
Visitor	Defines a new operation to a class without change