Visitor

Intent, Motivation, Applicability, Structure, Participants, Collaborations, Consequences, Implementation, Sample Code, Known Uses, Related Patterns

Implementation

Each object structure will have an associated Visitor class. This abstract visitor class declares a VisitConcreteElement operation for each class of ConcreteElement defining the object structure. Each Visit operation on the Visitor declares its argument to be a particular ConcreteElement, allowing the Visitor to access the interface of the ConcreteElement directly. ConcreteVisitor classes override each Visit operation to implement visitor-specific behavior for the corresponding ConcreteElement class.

The Visitor class would be declared like this in C++:

class Visitor { public: virtual void VisitElementA(ElementA*); virtual void VisitElementB(ElementB*); // and so on for other concrete elements protected: Visitor(); };

The concrete elements are declared as

class Element { public: virtual ~Element(); virtual void Accept(Visitor&) = 0; protected: Element(); }; class ElementA : public Element { public: ElementA(); virtual void Accept(Visitor& v) { v.VisitElementA(this); } }; class ElementB : public Element { public: ElementB(); virtual void Accept(Visitor& v) { v.VisitElementB(this); } };

class CompositeElement : public Element { public: virtual void Accept(Visitor&); private: List* _children; }; void CompositeElement::Accept (Visitor& v) { ListIterator i(_children); for (i.First(); !i.IsDone(); i.Next()) { i.CurrentItem()->Accept(v); } v.VisitCompositeElement(this); }

1. Double dispatch. Effectively, the Visitor pattern lets you add operations to classes without changing them. Visitor achieves this by using a technique called double-dispatch. It's a well-known technique. In fact, some programming languages support it directly (CLOS, for example). Languages like C++ and Smalltalk support single-dispatch.

   In single-dispatch languages, two criteria determine which operation will fulfill a request: the name of the request and the type of receiver. For example, the operation that a GenerateCode request will call depends on the type of node object you ask. In C++, calling GenerateCode on an instance of VariableRefNode will call VariableRefNode::GenerateCode (which generates code for a variable reference). Calling GenerateCode on an AssignmentNode will call AssignmentNode::GenerateCode (which will generate code for an assignment). The operation that gets executed depends both on the kind of request and the type of the receiver.

   ``Double-dispatch'' simply means the operation that gets executed depends on the kind of request and the types of two receivers. Accept is a double-dispatch operation. Its meaning depends on two types: the Visitor's and the Element's. Double-dispatching lets visitors request different operations on each class of element.

   This is the key to the Visitor pattern: The operation that gets executed depends on both the type of Visitor and the type of Element it visits. Instead of binding operations statically into the Element interface, you can consolidate the operations in a Visitor and use Accept to do the binding at run-time. Extending the Element interface amounts to defining one new Visitor subclass rather than many new Element subclasses.

2. Who is responsible for traversing the object structure? A visitor must visit each element of the object structure. The question is, how does it get there? We can put responsibility for traversal in any of three places: in the object structure, in the visitor, or in a separate iterator object.

   Often the object structure is responsible for iteration. A collection will simply iterate over its elements, calling the Accept operation on each. A composite will commonly traverse itself by having each Accept operation traverse the element's children and call Accept on each of them recursively.

   Another solution is to use an iterator to visit the elements. In C++, you could use either an internal or external iterator, depending on what is available and what is most efficient. In Smalltalk, you usually use an internal iterator using do: and a block. Since internal iterators are implemented by the object structure, using an internal iterator is a lot like making the object structure responsible for iteration. The main difference is that an internal iterator will not cause double-dispatching---it will call an operation on the visitor with an element as an argument as opposed to calling an operation on the element with the visitor as an argument. But it's easy to use the Visitor pattern with an internal iterator if the operation on the visitor simply calls the operation on the element without recursing.

   You could even put the traversal algorithm in the visitor, although you'll end up duplicating the traversal code in each ConcreteVisitor for each aggregate ConcreteElement. The main reason to put the traversal strategy in the visitor is to implement a particularly complex traversal, one that depends on the results of the operations on the object structure. We'll give an example of such a case in the Sample Code.

Implementation of Abstract Factory, Adapter, Bridge, Builder, Chain of Responsibility, Command, Composite, Decorator, Facade, Factory Method, Flyweight, Interpreter, Iterator, Mediator, Memento, Observer, Prototype, Proxy, Singleton, State, Strategy, Template Method, Visitor