Sequential coupling

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title: "Sequential coupling" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["anti-patterns"] description: "Design issue in object-oriented programming" topic_path: "technology/software-engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_coupling" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Design issue in object-oriented programming ::

In object-oriented programming, sequential coupling (also known as temporal coupling) is a form of coupling where a class requires its methods to be called in a particular sequence. This may be an anti-pattern, depending on context.

Methods whose name starts with Init, Begin, Start, etc. may indicate the existence of sequential coupling.

Using a car as an analogy, if the user steps on the gas without first starting the engine, the car does not crash, fail, or throw an exception - it simply fails to accelerate.

Sequential coupling can be refactored with the template method pattern to overcome the problems posed by the usage of this anti-pattern.

References

References

1. Andriy, Buday. (15 April 2010). "Refactor: Sequential Coupling => Template Method". The Code Project.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::