The Abstract Factory pattern provides an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes. The client is decoupled from any of the specifics of the concrete object obtained from the factory.
The Adapter design pattern converts the interface of a class into another interface that clients expect. Adapter lets classes work together that couldn’t otherwise because of incompatible interfaces. It decouples the client from the class of the targeted object.
The Chain of Responsibility design pattern decouples the sender of a request from its receiver by giving more than one object a chance to handle the request. The pattern chains the receiving objects together and passes the request along the chain until an object handles it. Each object in the chain either handles the request or passes it to the next object in the chain.
The Command design pattern encapsulates a request as an object, thereby letting you parameterize clients with different requests, queue or log requests, and support undoable operations. The request object binds together one or more actions on a specific receiver. The Command pattern separates an object making a request from the objects that receive and execute that request.
The Composite design pattern composes related objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies. The pattern lets clients treat individual objects and compositions of objects uniformly. The Composite pattern is part of the Model-View-Controller aggregate pattern.
The Decorator design pattern attaches additional responsibilities to an object dynamically. Decorators provide a flexible alternative to subclassing for extending functionality. As does subclassing, adaptation of the Decorator pattern allows you to incorporate new behavior without modifying existing code. Decorators wrap an object of the class whose behavior they extend. They implement the same interface as the object they wrap and add their own behavior either before or after delegating a task to the wrapped object. The Decorator pattern expresses the design principle that classes should be open to extension but closed to modification.
The Facade design pattern provides a unified interface to a set of interfaces in a subsystem. The pattern defines a higher-level interface that makes the subsystem easier to use by reducing complexity and hiding the communication and dependencies between subsystems.
The Iterator design pattern provides a way to access the elements of an aggregate object (that is, a collection) sequentially without exposing its underlying representation. The Iterator pattern transfers the responsibility for accessing and traversing the elements of a collection from the collection itself to an iterator object. The Iterator defines an interface for accessing collection elements and keeps track of the current element. Different iterators can carry out different traversal policies.
The Mediator design pattern defines an object that encapsulates how a set of objects interact. Mediator promotes loose coupling by keeping objects from referring to each other explicitly, and it lets you vary their interaction independently. These objects can thus remain more reusable.
A "mediator object” in this pattern centralizes complex communication and control logic between objects in a system. These objects tell the mediator object when their state changes and, in turn, respond to requests from the mediator object.
The Memento pattern captures and externalizes an object’s internal state—without violating encapsulation—so that the object can be restored to this state later. The Memento pattern keeps the important state of a key object external from that object to maintain cohesion.
The Observer design pattern defines a one-to-many dependency between objects so that when one object changes state, all its dependents are notified and updated automatically. The Observer pattern is essentially a publish-and-subscribe model in which the subject and its observers are loosely coupled. Communication can take place between the observing and observed objects without either needing to know much about the other.
The Proxy design pattern provides a surrogate, or placeholder, for another object in order to control access to that other object. You use this pattern to create a representative, or proxy, object that controls access to another object, which may be remote, expensive to create, or in need of securing. This pattern is structurally similar to the Decorator pattern but it serves a different purpose; Decorator adds behavior to an object whereas Proxy controls access to an object.
The Receptionist design pattern addresses the general problem of redirecting an event occurring in one execution context of an application to another execution context for handling. It is a hybrid pattern. Although it doesn’t appear in the “Gang of Four” book, it combines elements of the Command, Memo, and Proxy design patterns described in that book. It is also a variant of the Trampoline pattern (which also doesn’t appear in the book); in this pattern, an event initially is received by a trampoline object, so-called because it immediately bounces, or redirects, the event to a target object for handling.
The Singleton design pattern ensures a class only has one instance, and provides a global point of access to it. The class keeps track of its sole instance and ensures that no other instance can be created. Singleton classes are appropriate for situations where it makes sense for a single object to provide access to a global resource.
The Template Method design pattern defines the skeleton of an algorithm in an operation, deferring some steps to subclasses. The Template Method pattern lets subclasses redefine certain steps of an algorithm without changing the algorithm’s structure.
Source: Cocoa Design Patterns.
