This article describes the Visitor design pattern. This is a
behavioral design pattern, a category of
design pattern used by software engineers, when writing computer programs.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Visitor pattern is a
design pattern, used in software engineering to add new virtual functions to a class without needing to change the class itself. The class is passed into the visitor to be acted upon, effectively giving the actor extra
functionality.
It is defined as a
behavioral design pattern, because it enables extra functionality to be performed.
Benefits
Existing classes or closed classes can be re-used to perform new tasks, like save to a new file format.
Examples of the pattern
[please contribute]
See Also
Link to domain parent articles and related articles in TechNet Wiki.
Community Resources
These are the external links, including links to Microsoft and TechNet sites that are non-Wiki- [Please contribute]
References section
Use this section if you pulled source material and ideas from other sites, blogs, or forums. Make sure you have permission from authors to use their material.- [Please contribute]