🌿 Composite Pattern: Work with Trees Like Simple Objects

The Composite Pattern is a structural design pattern that allows you to treat individual objects and groups of objects in the same way. It is especially useful when dealing with tree-like structures, such as hierarchies of UI elements, file systems, or organization charts.

Described in the classic book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the Gang of Four (GoF), the Composite Pattern simplifies code that interacts with complex tree structures.

🔹 When to Use the Composite Pattern

• When your application needs to treat individual objects and groups uniformly.
• When working with tree structures, like file directories or nested UI elements.
• When you want to simplify client code by handling leaves and composites through a common interface.

🧱 Structure

The pattern defines:

• Component – a common interface for both leaf and composite objects.
• Leaf – represents individual objects that do not have children.
• Composite – represents objects that may have children and delegate operations to them.

🔧 Java Example: File System Structure

Let’s implement a simple file system where both files and folders can be treated the same way.

Step 1: Create the Component Interface

Step 2: Leaf Implementation

Step 3: Composite Implementation

Step 4: Using the Composite

✅ Output

✅ Benefits of the Composite Pattern

• Simplifies client code by treating individual and grouped objects uniformly.
• Makes it easier to add new types of components.
• Encourages cleaner, recursive structures for tree data.

The Composite Pattern is an excellent choice when working with hierarchical or nested data. It keeps your code consistent, scalable, and easier to maintain.

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