What is the difference between Strategy pattern and Visitor Pattern?

Question

I have trouble understanding these two design patterns.

Can you please give me contextual information or an example so I can get a clear idea and be able to map the dif

Answer 1

A Visitor is a strategy but with multiple methods and it allows Double dispatch. The Visitor also allows for safe binding between two concrete objects at runtime.

Note: This is an example written in Java. For example C# introduced the dynamic keyword, therefor the example of double dispatch is not useful in C#.

Strategy pattern

Consider the following example and the output:

package DesignPatterns;

public class CarGarageStrategyDemo 
{
    public static interface RepairStrategy
    {
        public void repair(Car car);
    }

    public static interface Car
    {
        public String getName();
        public void repair(RepairStrategy repairStrategy);
    }

    public static class PorscheRepairStrategy implements RepairStrategy
    {
        @Override
        public void repair(Car car) {
            System.out.println("Repairing " + car.getName() + " with the Porsche repair strategy");
        }
    }
    
    public static class FerrariRepairStrategy implements RepairStrategy
    {
        @Override
        public void repair(Car car) {
            System.out.println("Repairing " + car.getName() + " with the Ferrari repair strategy");
        }
    }

    public static class Porsche implements Car
    {
        public String getName()
        {
            return "Porsche";
        }

        @Override
        public void repair(RepairStrategy repairStrategy) {
            repairStrategy.repair(this);
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        Car porsche = new Porsche();
        porsche.repair(new PorscheRepairStrategy()); //Repairing Porsche with the porsche repair strategy
    }
}

The Strategy pattern is working fine if there is no direct relationship between the strategy and the subject. For example, we don't want the following to happen:

...
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        Car porsche = new Porsche();
        porsche.repair(new FerrariRepairStrategy()); //We cannot repair a Porsche as a Ferrari!
    }
...

So in this case we can use the visitor pattern.

Visitor

The problem

Consider the code below:

public class CarGarageVisitorProblem
{
    public static interface Car
    {
        public String getName();
    }

    public static class Porsche implements Car
    {
        public String getName()
        {
            return "Porsche";
        }
    }

    public static class Ferrari implements Car
    {
        public String getName()
        {
            return "Ferrari";
        }
    }

    public void repair(Car car)
    {
        System.out.println("Applying a very generic and abstract repair");
    }

    public void repair(Porsche car)
    {
        System.out.println("Applying a very specific Porsche repair");
    }

    public void repair(Ferrari car)
    {
        System.out.println("Applying a very specific Ferrari repair");
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        CarGarageVisitorProblem garage = new CarGarageVisitorProblem();
        Porsche porsche = new Porsche();
        garage.repair(porsche); //Applying a very specific Porsche repair
    }
}

The output is Applying a very specific Porsche repair. The problem is that this line is not abstract, but concrete:

Porsche porsche = new Porsche();

We want to write it as (or inject an instance of Car in the constructor, we want to apply the Dependency Inversion Principle):

Car porsche = new Porsche();

But when we change this line, the output will be:

Applying a very generic and abstract repair

Not what we want!

The solution; using double dispatch (and the Visitor pattern)

package DesignPatterns;

public class CarGarageVisitorExample 
{
    public static interface Car
    {
        public String getName();
        public void repair(RepairVisitorInterface repairVisitor);
    }

    public static class Porsche implements Car
    {
        public String getName()
        {
            return "Porsche";
        }

        public void repair(RepairVisitorInterface repairVisitor)
        {
            repairVisitor.repair(this);
        }
    }

    public static class Ferrari implements Car
    {
        public String getName()
        {
            return "Ferrari";
        }

        public void repair(RepairVisitorInterface repairVisitor)
        {
            repairVisitor.repair(this);
        }
    }

    public static interface RepairVisitorInterface
    {
        public void repair(Car car);
        public void repair(Porsche car);
        public void repair(Ferrari car);
    }

    public static class RepairVisitor implements RepairVisitorInterface
    {
        public void repair(Car car)
        {
            System.out.println("Applying a very generic and abstract repair");
        }

        public void repair(Porsche car)
        {
            System.out.println("Applying a very specific Porsche repair");
        }

        public void repair(Ferrari car)
        {
            System.out.println("Applying a very specific Ferrari repair");
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        CarGarageVisitor garage = new CarGarageVisitor();
        Car porsche = new Porsche();
        porsche.repair(new RepairVisitor()); //Applying a very specific Porsche repair
    }
}

Because of method overloading, there is a concrete binding between the visitor and the subject (Car). There is no way a Porsche can be repaired as a Ferrari, since it uses method overloading. Also we solved the previously explained problem (that we cannot use Dependency Inversion), by implementing this method:

public void repair(RepairVisitorInterface repairVisitor)
{
    repairVisitor.repair(this);
}

The this reference will return the concrete type of the object, not the abstract (Car) type.