
- Design Patterns Tutorial
- Design Patterns - Home
- Design Patterns - Overview
- Design Patterns - Factory Pattern
- Abstract Factory Pattern
- Design Patterns - Singleton Pattern
- Design Patterns - Builder Pattern
- Design Patterns - Prototype Pattern
- Design Patterns - Adapter Pattern
- Design Patterns - Bridge Pattern
- Design Patterns - Filter Pattern
- Design Patterns - Composite Pattern
- Design Patterns - Decorator Pattern
- Design Patterns - Facade Pattern
- Design Patterns - Flyweight Pattern
- Design Patterns - Proxy Pattern
- Chain of Responsibility Pattern
- Design Patterns - Command Pattern
- Design Patterns - Interpreter Pattern
- Design Patterns - Iterator Pattern
- Design Patterns - Mediator Pattern
- Design Patterns - Memento Pattern
- Design Patterns - Observer Pattern
- Design Patterns - State Pattern
- Design Patterns - Null Object Pattern
- Design Patterns - Strategy Pattern
- Design Patterns - Template Pattern
- Design Patterns - Visitor Pattern
- Design Patterns - MVC Pattern
- Business Delegate Pattern
- Composite Entity Pattern
- Data Access Object Pattern
- Front Controller Pattern
- Intercepting Filter Pattern
- Service Locator Pattern
- Transfer Object Pattern
Design Patterns - Decorator Pattern
Decorator pattern allows a user to add new functionality to an existing object without altering its structure. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern acts as a wrapper to existing class.
This pattern creates a decorator class which wraps the original class and provides additional functionality keeping class methods signature intact.
We are demonstrating the use of decorator pattern via following example in which we will decorate a shape with some color without alter shape class.
Implementation
We're going to create a Shape interface and concrete classes implementing the Shape interface. We will then create an abstract decorator class ShapeDecorator implementing the Shape interface and having Shape object as its instance variable.
RedShapeDecorator is concrete class implementing ShapeDecorator.
DecoratorPatternDemo, our demo class will use RedShapeDecorator to decorate Shape objects.

Step 1
Create an interface.
Shape.java
public interface Shape { void draw(); }
Step 2
Create concrete classes implementing the same interface.
Rectangle.java
public class Rectangle implements Shape { @Override public void draw() { System.out.println("Shape: Rectangle"); } }
Circle.java
public class Circle implements Shape { @Override public void draw() { System.out.println("Shape: Circle"); } }
Step 3
Create abstract decorator class implementing the Shape interface.
ShapeDecorator.java
public abstract class ShapeDecorator implements Shape { protected Shape decoratedShape; public ShapeDecorator(Shape decoratedShape){ this.decoratedShape = decoratedShape; } public void draw(){ decoratedShape.draw(); } }
Step 4
Create concrete decorator class extending the ShapeDecorator class.
RedShapeDecorator.java
public class RedShapeDecorator extends ShapeDecorator { public RedShapeDecorator(Shape decoratedShape) { super(decoratedShape); } @Override public void draw() { decoratedShape.draw(); setRedBorder(decoratedShape); } private void setRedBorder(Shape decoratedShape){ System.out.println("Border Color: Red"); } }
Step 5
Use the RedShapeDecorator to decorate Shape objects.
DecoratorPatternDemo.java
public class DecoratorPatternDemo { public static void main(String[] args) { Shape circle = new Circle(); Shape redCircle = new RedShapeDecorator(new Circle()); Shape redRectangle = new RedShapeDecorator(new Rectangle()); System.out.println("Circle with normal border"); circle.draw(); System.out.println("\nCircle of red border"); redCircle.draw(); System.out.println("\nRectangle of red border"); redRectangle.draw(); } }
Step 6
Verify the output.
Circle with normal border Shape: Circle Circle of red border Shape: Circle Border Color: Red Rectangle of red border Shape: Rectangle Border Color: Red