Delegation (computing)

{{Short description|Related programming concepts of responsibility for actions}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2019}}

{{Use American English|date=January 2019}}

In computing or computer programming, delegation refers generally to one entity passing something to another entity,Barry Wilkinson, Grid Computing: Techniques and Applications (2009), p. 164, {{ISBN|1420069543}}. and narrowly to various specific forms of relationships. These include:

• Delegation (object-oriented programming), evaluating a member of one object (the receiver) in the context of another, original object (the sender).
• Delegation pattern, a design pattern implementing this feature.
• Forwarding (object-oriented programming), an often-confused technique where a sending object uses the corresponding member of another object, without the receiving object having any knowledge of the original, sending object.
• Object aggregation or consultation, general term for one object using another.
• Delegation (computer security), one user or process allowing another user or process to use their credentials or permissions.
• Delegate (CLI), a form of type-safe function pointer used by the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), specifying both a method to call and optionally an object to call the method on.