1
edit
Changes
→Adapter Design Pattern
Adapter, a Structural Pattern and also referred to as a '''wrapper''', is most commonly used when you want to reuse a class to work with a target class but are constrained by incompatible interfaces. The idea is to convert the interface of a reusable class into an interface that ''your'' classes expect.
A good analogy for the Adapter pattern would be the adapter's adapters that are commonly used to convert the voltage of Canadian/U.S made appliances to be used in different countries. In this case, the appliance ('''Target''') is using the adapter ('''Adapter''') to reuse the socket ('''Adaptee''') already in place.
There are two specific types of adapter patterns - ''object adapter pattern'' and ''class adapter pattern''. The latter uses multiple inheritance whereas the former uses an instance of the reuseable class it wants to adapt. Between the two, object adapter pattern is the favored one due to the fact that popular languages such as Java do not support multiple inheritance.