Chain of responsibility
Intent
Avoid coupling the sender of a request to its receiver by giving more than one object a chance to
handle the request. Chain the receiving objects and pass the request along the chain until an object
handles it.
Explanation
Real-world example
The Orc King gives loud orders to his army. The closest one to react is the commander, then
an officer, and then a soldier. The commander, officer, and soldier form a chain of responsibility.
In plain words
It helps to build a chain of objects. A request enters from one end and keeps going from an object
to another until it finds a suitable handler.
Wikipedia says
In object-oriented design, the chain-of-responsibility 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.
Programmatic Example
Translating our example with the orcs from above. First, we have the Request class:
public class Request {
private final RequestType requestType;
private final String requestDescription;
private boolean handled;
public Request(final RequestType requestType, final String requestDescription) {
this.requestType = Objects.requireNonNull(requestType);
this.requestDescription = Objects.requireNonNull(requestDescription);
}
public String getRequestDescription() { return requestDescription; }
public RequestType getRequestType() { return requestType; }
public void markHandled() { this.handled = true; }
public boolean isHandled() { return this.handled; }
@Override
public String toString() { return getRequestDescription(); }
}
public enum RequestType {
DEFEND_CASTLE, TORTURE_PRISONER, COLLECT_TAX
}
Next, we show the request handler hierarchy.
public interface RequestHandler {
boolean canHandleRequest(Request req);
int getPriority();
void handle(Request req);
String name();
}
@Slf4j
public class OrcCommander implements RequestHandler {
@Override
public boolean canHandleRequest(Request req) {
return req.getRequestType() == RequestType.DEFEND_CASTLE;
}
@Override
public int getPriority() {
return 2;
}
@Override
public void handle(Request req) {
req.markHandled();
LOGGER.info("{} handling request \"{}\"", name(), req);
}
@Override
public String name() {
return "Orc commander";
}
}
// OrcOfficer and OrcSoldier are defined similarly as OrcCommander
The Orc King gives the orders and forms the chain.
public class OrcKing {
private List<RequestHandler> handlers;
public OrcKing() {
buildChain();
}
private void buildChain() {
handlers = Arrays.asList(new OrcCommander(), new OrcOfficer(), new OrcSoldier());
}
public void makeRequest(Request req) {
handlers
.stream()
.sorted(Comparator.comparing(RequestHandler::getPriority))
.filter(handler -> handler.canHandleRequest(req))
.findFirst()
.ifPresent(handler -> handler.handle(req));
}
}
The chain of responsibility in action.
var king = new OrcKing();
king.makeRequest(new Request(RequestType.DEFEND_CASTLE, "defend castle"));
king.makeRequest(new Request(RequestType.TORTURE_PRISONER, "torture prisoner"));
king.makeRequest(new Request(RequestType.COLLECT_TAX, "collect tax"));
The console output.
Orc commander handling request "defend castle"
Orc officer handling request "torture prisoner"
Orc soldier handling request "collect tax"
Class diagram
Applicability
Use Chain of Responsibility when
- More than one object may handle a request, and the handler isn't known a priori. The handler should be ascertained automatically.
- You want to issue a request to one of several objects without specifying the receiver explicitly.
- The set of objects that can handle a request should be specified dynamically.