Mapper Pattern

1. Motivation

Sometimes you need to set up communications between two subsystems that still need to stay ignorant of each other. This may be because you can't modify them or you can but you don't want to create dependencies between the two or even between them and the isolating element

1. Summary

   1. 1. It is a generic base pattern that and can be though of more complex version of gateway.

      2. A mapper is an insulating layer between subsystems. It controls the details of the communication between them without either subsystem being aware of it.

      3. A mapper often shuffles data from one layer to another.

      4. The complicated part of using a mapper is deciding how to invoke it, since it can't be directly invoked by either of the subsystems that it's mapping between. Sometimes a third subsystem drives the mapping and invokes the mapper as well.

      5. How a mapper works depends on the kind of layers it's mapping. The most common case of a mapping layer that we run into is in a Data Mapper, so look there for more details on how a Mapper is used.

1. Type of Mappers

   1. 1. As mapper is a very generic pattern so it can be use in several situations , some very common types are listed below.

         1. Data Mapper

         2. Protocol Mappers

         3. Schema Mappers

         4. Interface Mappers (Adapters)

2. Related Patterns

• • 1. Data Mappers :One of the most used mapper patterns for mapping data source to business model.

    2. Protocol Mappers.

    3. Schema Mappers

3. Specific Considerations

• 1. Gateway Vs Mappers

     1. 1. Essentially a Mapper decouples different parts of a system. When you want to do this you have a choice between Mapper and Gateway.

        2. Gateway is by far the most common choice because it's much simpler to use a Gateway than a Mapper both in writing the code and in using it later.

  2. Mapper Vs Mediator

• • • 1. Mapper is similar to Mediator [Gang of Four] in that it's used to separate different elements.

      2. However, the objects that use a mediator are aware of it, even if they aren't aware of each other; the objects that a Mapper separates aren't even aware of the mapper.

• 3. References

• • 1. http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/mapper.html