In object-oriented programming, the chain-of-responsibility design pattern is a design pattern consisting of a source of command objects and a series of processing objects. Each processing object contains logic that defines the types of command objects that it can handle; the rest are passed to the next processing object in the chain. A mechanism also exists for adding new processing objects to the end of this chain.
- Chain of command
- Responsibility chain
- Chain of delegation
- Responsibility chain pattern
- Chain of authority
- Chain of handling
- Chain of processing
- Chain of control
This pattern allows a request to be passed through a chain of objects until it is handled, without the sender of the request necessarily knowing which object will handle the request. It also allows new processing objects to be added to the chain dynamically.
The chain-of-responsibility pattern is useful in situations where a request may be handled by any one of a number of objects in a system, and the exact handler is not known beforehand. It can also be used to reduce coupling between classes, as the exact type and number of handler objects is not known at compile-time.
