Data transfer object

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Data transfer object (DTO), formerly known as value objects or VO, is a design pattern used to transfer data between software application subsystems. DTOs are often used in conjunction with data access objects to retrieve data from a database.

The difference between data transfer objects and business objects or data access objects is that a DTO does not have any behaviour except for storage and retrieval of its own data (accessors and mutators).

In a traditional EJB architecture, DTOs serve dual purposes: first, they work around the problem that entity beans are not serializable; second, they implicitly define an assembly phase where all data to be used by the view is fetched and marshalled into the DTOs before returning control to the presentation tier.

[edit] See also

Data access object

[edit] External links

• Core J2EE Patterns - Transfer Object
• Core J2EE Patterns - Data Access Object
• Abuses of DTO pattern in Java World
• Data Transfer Object - Microsoft MSDN Library