/ Design Patterns / Behavioral patterns / Strategy

Strategy Design Pattern in Java

Strategy design pattern

  1. Define the interface of an interchangeable family of algorithms
  2. Bury algorithm implementation details in derived classes
  3. Derived classes could be implemented using the Template Method pattern
  4. Clients of the algorithm couple themselves strictly to the interface
// 1. Define the interface of the algorithm
interface Strategy {
    void solve();
}

// 2. Bury implementation
@SuppressWarnings("ALL")
abstract class StrategySolution implements Strategy {
    // 3. Template Method
    public void solve() {
        start();
        while (nextTry() && !isSolution()) {}
        stop();
    }

    abstract void start();
    abstract boolean nextTry();
    abstract boolean isSolution();
    abstract void stop();
}

class FOO extends StrategySolution {
    private int state = 1;

    protected void start() {
        System.out.print("Start  ");
    }

    protected void stop() {
        System.out.println("Stop");
    }

    protected boolean nextTry() {
        System.out.print("NextTry-" + state++ + "  ");
        return true;
    }

    protected boolean isSolution() {
        System.out.print("IsSolution-" + (state == 3) + "  ");
        return (state == 3);
    }
}

// 2. Bury implementation
abstract class StrategySearch implements Strategy {
    // 3. Template Method
    public void solve() {
        while (true) {
            preProcess();
            if (search()) {
                break;
            }
            postProcess();
        }
    }

    abstract void preProcess();
    abstract boolean search();
    abstract void postProcess();
}

@SuppressWarnings("ALL")
class BAR extends StrategySearch {
    private int state = 1;

    protected void preProcess()  {
        System.out.print("PreProcess  ");
    }

    protected void postProcess() {
        System.out.print("PostProcess  ");
    }

    protected boolean search() {
        System.out.print("Search-" + state++ + "  ");
        return state == 3 ? true : false;
    }
}

// 4. Clients couple strictly to the interface
public class StrategyDemo {
    // client code here
    private static void execute(Strategy strategy) {
        strategy.solve();
    }

    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        Strategy[] algorithms = {new FOO(), new BAR()};
        for (Strategy algorithm : algorithms) {
            execute(algorithm);
        }
    }
}

Output

start  nextTry-1  isSolution-false  nextTry-2  isSolution-true  stop
preProcess  search-1  postProcess  preProcess  search-2

Code examples

Java Strategy in Java
C++ Strategy in C++
PHP Strategy in PHP
Delphi Strategy in Delphi
Python Strategy in Python