Editing Decorator pattern (section)

==Overview== 
The ''decorator''<ref name="GoF">{{cite book|author=Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides|title=Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software|year=1994|publisher=Addison Wesley|isbn=0-201-63361-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/designpatternsel00gamm/page/175 175ff]|url=https://archive.org/details/designpatternsel00gamm/page/175}}</ref> design pattern is one of the twenty-three well-known ''[[Design Patterns|design patterns]]''; these describe how to solve recurring design problems and design flexible and reusable object-oriented software—that is, objects which are easier to implement, change, test, and reuse.

The decorator pattern provides a flexible alternative to subclassing for extending functionality. When using subclassing, different subclasses extend a class in different ways. However, an extension is bound to the class at compile-time and can't be changed at run-time. The decorator pattern allows responsibilities to be added (and removed from) an object dynamically at run-time. It is achieved by defining <code>Decorator</code> objects that
* implement the interface of the extended (decorated) object (<code>Component</code>) transparently by forwarding all requests to it.
* perform additional functionality before or after forwarding a request.

This allows working with different <code>Decorator</code> objects to extend the functionality of an object dynamically at run-time.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |title=The Decorator design pattern - Problem, Solution, and Applicability |url=http://w3sdesign.com/?gr=s04&ugr=proble |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408204922/http://w3sdesign.com/?gr=s04&ugr=proble#gf |archive-date=2023-04-08 |access-date=2017-08-12 |website=w3sDesign}}</ref>