Strategy pattern · WebGlossary.info

A behavioral software design pattern that enables selecting an algorithm at runtime. Instead of implementing a single algorithm directly, code receives runtime instructions as to which in a family of algorithms to use. Typically, the strategy pattern stores a reference to some code in a data structure and retrieves it. This can be achieved by mechanisms such as the native function pointer, the first-class function, classes or class instances in object-oriented programming languages, or accessing the language implementation’s internal storage of code via reflection. ← Wikipedia