Observer Pattern

Luca Vigan
Dipartimento di Informatica Universit di Verona

Laboratorio di Ingegneria del Software 06.05.2011

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Keeping your Objects in the Know (The Observer Pattern)

Dont miss out when something interesting happens! There is a pattern that keeps your objects in the know when something they might care about happens. Objects can even decide at runtime whether they want to be kept informed.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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A Problem Description: Weather Monitoring

Weather-O-Rama has just selected your company to build a next generation Internet-based Weather Monitoring Station. This is what Weather-O-Rama writes: The weather station will be based on our patent pending WeatherData object, which tracks current weather conditions (temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure). Wed like for you to create an application that initially provides three display elements: current conditions, weather statistics and a simple forecast, all updated in real time as the WeatherData object acquires the most recent measurements. Further, this is an expandable weather station. Weather-O-Rama wants to release an API so that other developers can write their own weather display and plug them right in. Wed like for you to supply that API!
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The Weather Monitoring application overview

The three players in the system are:
the weather station (the physical device that acquires the actual weather data), the WeatherData object (that tracks the data coming from the weather station and updates the display), the display that shows users the current weather conditions.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Your job

Create an application that uses the WeatherData object to update three displays for current conditions, weather stats, and a forecast. Your starting point: the WeatherData class.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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The WeatherData class

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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What do we know so far?

The WeatherData class has getter methods for three measurement values:
1 2 3

getTemperature() for the temperature; getHumidity() for humidity; and getPressure() for barometric pressure.

The measurementsChanged() method is called any time new weather measurement data is available. We need to implement three display elements that use the weather data: a current conditions display, a statistics display and a forecast display. These displays must be updated each time WeatherData has new measurements. The system must be expandable: other developers can create new custom display elements and users can add or remove as many display elements as they want to the application.
Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona) Observer Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011 7 / 26

A rst, misguided wild guess at the Weather Station

Here is a rst implementation possibility:

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Brain teaser

Based on our rst implementation, which of the following apply?

a) b) c) d) e) f) we are coding to concrete implementations, not interfaces for every new display element we need to alter code we have no way to add (or remove) display elements at run time the display elements dont implement a common interface we havent encapsulated the part that changes we are violating encapsulation of the WeatherData class

Solution: a, c, e and partly b.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Whats wrong with our implementation?

Think back to all those concepts and principles...

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Meet the Observer Pattern

How newspaper or magazine subscriptions work:
1. A newspaper publisher goes into business and begins publishing newspapers. 2. You subscribe to a particular publisher, and every time theres a new edition it gets delivered to you. As long as you remain a subscriber, you get new newspapers. 3. You unsubscribe when you dont want papers anymore, and they stop being delivered. 4. While the publisher remains in business, people, hotels, airlines and other business constantly subscribe and unsubscribe to the newspaper.

If you understand newspaper subscriptions, you pretty much understand the Observer Pattern, only we call the publisher the subject and the subscribers the observers.

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

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Observer

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

A Duck object comes along and tells the Subject that it wants to become an observer:

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

The Duck object is now an ofcial observer:

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Observer

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

The Subject gets a new data value!

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

The Mouse object asks to be removed as an observer:

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

Mouse is outta here!

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Publisher + Subscribers = Observer Pattern

The Subject has another new int:

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Observer

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The Observer Pattern dened

The Observer Pattern denes a one-to-many dependency between objects so that when one object changes state, all of its dependents are notied and updated automatically:

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The Observer Pattern dened: the class diagram

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Subject interface:
Objects use this interface to register as observers and also to remove themselves from being observers.

Observer interface:
All potential observers need to implement the Observer interface. This interface just has one method, update(), that gets called when the Subjects state changes.

ConcreteSubject class:
A concrete subject always implements the Subject Interface. In addition to the register and remove methods, the concrete subject implements a notifyObservers() method that is used to update all the current observers whenever state changes. The concrete subject may also have methods for setting and getting its state (more about this later).

ConcreteObserver class:
Concrete observers can be any class that implements the Observer interface. Each observer registers with a concrete subject to receive updates.
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Questions
What does this have to do with one-to-many relationships? With the Observer pattern, the Subject is the object that contains the state and controls it. So, there is ONE subject with state. The observers, on the other hand, use the state, even if they dont own it. There are many observers and they rely on the Subject to tell them when its state changes. So there is a relationship between the ONE Subject to the MANY Observers. How does dependence come into this? Because the subject is the sole owner of that data, the observers are dependent on the subject to update them when the data changes. This leads to a cleaner OO design than allowing many objects to control the same data.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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The power of Loose Coupling

When two objects are loosely coupled, they can interact, but have very little knowledge of each other. The Observer Pattern provides an object design where subjects and observers are loosely coupled. Why?
The only thing the subject knows about an observer is that it implements a certain interface. We can add new observers at any time. We never need to modify the subject to add new types of observers. We can reuse subjects or observers independently of each other. Changes to either the subject or an observer will not affect the other.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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The power of Loose Coupling

Design Principle Strive for loosely coupled designs between objects that interact. Loosely coupled designs allow us to build exible OO systems that can handle change because they minimize the interdependency between objects.

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Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Implementing the Weather Station

Before moving on, try sketching out the classes youll need to implement the Weather Station, including the WeatherData class and its display elements. Make sure your diagram shows how all the pieces t together and also how another developers might implement her own display element. Now you are ready to start your implementation. Java provides some built-in support for the Observer pattern, however, get your hands dirty for now.

Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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Luca Vigan (Universit di Verona)

Observer

Lab. Ing. del SW, 06.05.2011

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