Design Patterns Chain of Resposibility Vs Decorator

design-patterns decorator chain-of-responsibility
Mind Dead picture Mind Dead · Sep 15, 2010 · Viewed 8.1k times · Source

How Chain of Responsibility Pattern Differs from Decorator Pattern..?

Answer

Nix picture Nix · Sep 15, 2010

I generally think of the Decorator as "adding" to some thing, where as Chain of Responsiblity is more like handling something thing.

In comparing the two patterns (besides being apples and oranges) the biggest difference is the Chain of Responsibility can kill the chain at any point.

Think of decorators as a layered unit in which each layer always does pre/post processing. Chain of Responsibility is more like a linked list, and generally 1 thing handles processing.

The Chain of Responsibility pattern allows for multiple things to handle an event but it also gives them the opportunity to terminate the chain at any point.

Related questions

Why would I ever use a Chain of Responsibility over a Decorator?

I'm just reading up on the Chain of Responsibility pattern and I'm having trouble imagining a scenario when I would prefer its use over that of decorator. What do you think? Does CoR have a niche use?

Read More
Understand the "Decorator Pattern" with a real world example

I was studying the Decorator Pattern as documented in GOF. Please, help me understand the Decorator Pattern. Could someone give a use-case example of where this is useful in the real world?

Read More
How do the Proxy, Decorator, Adapter, and Bridge Patterns differ?

I was looking at the Proxy Pattern, and to me it seems an awful lot like the Decorator, Adapter, and Bridge patterns. Am I misunderstanding something? What's the difference? Why would I use the Proxy pattern versus the others? How …

Read More