Introduction to Loosely Coupled Collections


Introduction

In this article, I am going to discuss about Loosely Coupled collection. Due to addition of Generic collections in C#, it became quite common to declare collection along with the type of objects; it can store in it. But, sometimes we might need a custom collection that will allow storing any kind of object's collection in it. I will explain this collection pattern followed by an example. Iterators provide an abstract mechanism to access elements in a collection without revealing its underlying implementation. If we use Iterators efficiently, it will create a loose coupling between the collection and its client.

I mean, we can leave the option of selecting the type of data structure for storing elements in client's hand.

Scenarios applicable for using this Collection:

  • If we want to store a group of items belonging to different collection types like Hash table, Hash set etc.
  • If the type of collection used to store elements changes frequently because of client's request or introduction of better collections like generic List, Hash set etc.

Benefits of using this Pattern:

  • We can add elements of any collection type.
  • More flexibility, since client will be having the choice of selecting appropriate collection type for storing the elements.

Implementation:

Create a new console application and name it as LooseCouplingIteratorSample. Now, add the code to program.cs as shown below:

class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            //Client Code...

            //Tight coupled Collection

            TightCoupledCollection col1 = new TightCoupledCollection();

            //Here, we can add only Hashtable...

            Hashtable hTable1 = new Hashtable();

            hTable1.Add(30, 40);

            col1.AddList(hTable1);

 

            //Loose coupled Collection

            //Here, we can add collections of any type that are implementing IEnumerable...

            LooseCoupledCollection col = new LooseCoupledCollection();

            Hashtable hTable = new Hashtable();

            HashSet<int> list = new HashSet<int>();

            List<string> slist = new List<string>();

            hTable.Add(1, 100);

            hTable.Add(12, 100);

           

            list.Add(20);

            list.Add(30);

           

            slist.Add("test");

            slist.Add("abc");

            col.AddList(hTable);

            col.AddList(list);

            col.AddList(slist);

            Console.ReadLine();

        }

    }

    class LooseCoupledCollection

    {

        private System.Collections.ArrayList list = new ArrayList();

        public void AddList(IEnumerable e)

        {

            IEnumerator item = e.GetEnumerator();

            while (item.MoveNext())

            {

                list.Add(item.Current);

            }

        }

    }

    class TightCoupledCollection

    {

        private System.Collections.ArrayList list = new ArrayList();

        public void AddList(Hashtable hTable)

        {

            IEnumerator item = hTable.GetEnumerator();

            while (item.MoveNext())

            {

                list.Add(item.Current);

            }

        }

    }

In tightly coupled collection, we are specifying the exact type of collection; it will accept. Because of this, the collection is going to depend on a specific built-in collection like hash table. But in loosely coupled one, it can accept any collection as long as it implements IEnumerable.

I am ending up the things here. I am attaching source code for reference. I hope this article will be helpful for all.


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