Connector A Design Pattern for Actively Initializing Network …

Short Description
This design pattern enables the tasks. performed by network services to evolve independently of. the mechanisms that actively initialize the services. The …

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Content
Connector
A Design Pattern for Actively
Initializing Network Services
Douglas C. Schmidt
schmidt@cs.wustl.edu
Department of Computer Science
Washington University
St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-7538
This paper appeared in the January 1996 issue of the C++
Report magazine.
1 Introduction
This article is part of a continuingseries that describes objectoriented
techniques for developing reusable, extensible, and
efficient communication software. The topic of this article is
the Connector pattern. This design pattern enables the tasks
performed by network services to evolve independently of
the mechanisms that actively initialize the services. The
Connector pattern is a companion to the Acceptor pattern
[1], which enables network services to evolve independently
of the mechanisms that passively establish connections used
by the services.
The Connector and Acceptor patterns are commonly used
in conjunction with connection-oriented protocols (such as
TCP or SPX). These protocols reliably deliver data between
two communication endpoints. Establishing connections between
two endpoints involves both a passive role and an
active role. The passive role initializes an endpoint of communication
at a particular address (such as an Internet IP
address and port number) and waits passively for other endpoints
to connectwith it. The…