| | Prototype pattern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | A prototype pattern is a creational design pattern used in software development when the type of objects to create is determined by a prototypical instance, which is cloned to produce new objects. |
 | | This pattern is used for example when the inherent cost of creating a new object in the standard way (e.g., using the 'new' keyword) is prohibitively expensive for a given application. |
 | | The client, instead of writing code that invokes the "new" operator on a hard-wired class name, calls the clone() method on the prototype, calls a factory method with a parameter designating the particular concrete derived class desired, or invokes the clone() method through some mechanism provided by another design pattern. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Prototype_pattern (562 words) |