Data Transfer Object (DTO)
The Data Transfer Object (DTO) design pattern is a robust approach to managing and transferring data in a service-oriented architecture like REST APIs. The DTO pattern is about organizing the data to deliver it to API clients optimally. DTOs are an integral part of the API contract, that we explore next.
Goal
A DTO's objective is to control an endpoint's inputs and outputs by loosely coupling the exposed API surface from the application’s inner workings. DTOs empower us to craft our web services the way we want the consumers to interact with them. So, no matter the underlying system, we can use DTOs to design endpoints that are easier to consume, maintain, and evolve.
Design
Each DTO represents an entity with all the necessary properties. That entity is either an input or an output and allows crafting the interaction between the clients and the API.DTOs serve to loosely couple our domain from the data exposed over the API by adding a level...
