Visitor Design Pattern is a behavioral design pattern that allows you to separate algorithms from the objects on which they operate. This pattern lets you define a new operation without changing the classes of the elements on which it operates. The Visitor pattern provides a way to add operations to a group of related objects by defining a visitor class that implements those operations.
Real world applications of Visitor design pattern
- Compilers: Using visitors to traverse abstract syntax trees for operations like code generation and type checking.
- File System: Applying operations like file size calculation or compression to different types of files in a directory hierarchy.
- Graphics Software: Rendering, transforming, or exporting various shapes (e.g., circles, rectangles) without modifying the shape classes.
- Data Export: Converting different elements of a data structure (e.g., XML, JSON, CSV) into various output formats without altering the original classes.
- Shopping Cart: Calculating total prices or generating discount reports for different product types (e.g., electronics, groceries) in a shopping cart system.
This project demonstrates the Visitor design pattern by separating operations from the elements they act upon. It features a linked list navigator of computer parts (Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor) that allows external operations like calculating total price (PriceVisitor) or collecting part names (NameVisitor). The design is flexible and extensible, enabling new operations to be added without modifying the existing element classes.
Here,
- 'A' represents abstract class.
- 'C' represents concrete class.
- 'I' represents interface class.
The project builds and runs with Visual Studio Community 2022 when the required workloads are installed.