Design Patterns : Adapter Pattern

There is already a large amount of literature on the Internet which discusses Adapter Pattern. However, the purpose of article is to showcase the implementations of the Adapter Pattern, rather than discussing the application of the pattern. In this post, adapter class is implemented using

1. Inheritance
2. Dependency Injection
3. Generics

Consider your old legacy code, which has a single method, GetEmployeeList.

public interface IHRSoftware
    {
        List<string> GetEmployeeNameList();
    }
    public class HRSoftware : IHRSoftware
    {
        public List<string> GetEmployeeNameList()
        {
            return new List<string>() { "Jia", "Anu", "Sreena" };
        }
    }

Client, consumes the class as follows.

            IHRSoftware hrsoft = new HRSoftware();
            foreach (var item in hrsoft.GetEmployeeNameList())
            {
                Console.WriteLine(item);
            }

Now, it so happened that the Client has gone through an overhaul and is now looking to use a new contract (interface), namely INewAgeSoftware, which exposes a property EmployeeList, replacing the GetEmployeeNameList Method. The interface declaration is as shown below.

    public interface INewAgeHRSoftware
    {
        List<string> EmployeeList { get;  }
    }

You however, would like to use your old existing code, without actually going ahead and making the changes in your legacy code. This is where adapter pattern come in handy. Following are different implementations of Adapter Class

1. Using Inheritance.

    public class AdapterWithInheritence : HRSoftware, INewAgeHRSoftware
    {

        public List<string> EmployeeList
        {
            get
            {
                return this.GetEmployeeNameList();
            }
        }
    }

2. Using Dependency Injection

    public class AdapterWithDI : INewAgeHRSoftware
    {
        private IHRSoftware _HRInstance;
        public AdapterWithDI(IHRSoftware HRSoftInstance)
        {
            _HRInstance = HRSoftInstance;
        }
        public List<string> EmployeeList
        {
            get
            {
                return _HRInstance.GetEmployeeNameList();
            }
        }
    }

3. And Finally, using Generics

    public class AdapterWithGenerics<T> : INewAgeHRSoftware where T : HRSoftware
    {
        private T _HRInstance;
        public AdapterWithGenerics(T Instance)
        {
            _HRInstance = Instance;
        }

        public List<string> EmployeeList
        {
            get
            {
                return _HRInstance.GetEmployeeNameList();
            }
        }
    }

Your new Client class would now look as follows

 Console.WriteLine("Fetching from NewAgeHRSoftware - Adapter via Inheritence");
            INewAgeHRSoftware newhrsoftInheritence = new AdapterWithInheritence();
            foreach (var item in newhrsoftInheritence.EmployeeList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(item);
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Fetching from NewAgeHRSoftware - Adapter via DI");
            INewAgeHRSoftware newhrsoftDI = new AdapterWithDI(new HRSoftware());
            foreach (var item in newhrsoftInheritence.EmployeeList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(item);
            }

            Console.WriteLine("Fetching from NewAgeHRSoftware - Adapter via Generics");
            INewAgeHRSoftware newhrsoftGenerics= new AdapterWithGenerics<HRSoftware>(new HRSoftware());
            foreach (var item in newhrsoftGenerics.EmployeeList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(item);
            }