State

The State pattern is a specialization of the Strategy pattern where the strategy changes depending on the state of the context.

We have seen in the previous section how a strategy can be selected based on different variables such as a configuration property or an input parameter, and once this selection is done, the strategy remains unchanged for the rest of the lifespan of the context object. In the State pattern, instead, the strategy (also called the state in this circumstance) is dynamic and can change during the lifetime of the context, thus allowing its behavior to adapt depending on its internal state.

The following figure shows us a representation of the pattern:

Figure 9.2: The State pattern

Figure 9.2 shows how a context object transitions through three states (A, B, and C). With the State pattern, at each different context state, we select a different strategy. This means that the context object will adopt a different behavior based...