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What's the point of having DTO object when you have the same object as POJO (Entity)?

I would like to understand what's the benefits to create DTO objects when you already have POJO object (as Entity).
In my project I have both :
DTO classes are used to communicate between Web Service and the application
POJO entity classes (JPA) are used for communication between database and the application
If I look at a DTO object class (let's call it MyObjDTO) and the same class but POJO side (let's call it MyObjPOJO) there is no difference at all except MyObjPOJO as annotation due to the fact it's an #Entity.
So in fact, I got in my project 2 classes who look the same (same attributes, same methods) but for different puprose.
IMO, in this case the DTO class is useless and increase application complexity because all I do with DTO class I can do it with my POJO class and moreover, for a single type of object I have to maintain at least 2 classes (the DTO and POJO), for instance if I add an attribute I have to add this attribute in both classes.
I'm not an expert and I'm questionning about my thoughts; what do you think about it ?

This answer is a replica of what can be found on stack exchange. IMHO the OP should be closed for being posted in the wrong forum. It's currently also attracting opinionated answers, though not necessarily so, and isn't tied to java in any particular way.
DTO is a pattern and it is implementation (POJO/POCO) independent. DTO says, since each call to any remote interface is expensive, response to each call should bring as much data as possible. So, if multiple requests are required to bring data for a particular task, data to be brought can be combined in a DTO so that only one request can bring all the required data. Catalog of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture has more details.
DTO's are a fundamental concept, not outdated.
What is somewhat outdated is the notion of having DTOs that contain no logic at all, are used only for transmitting data and "mapped" from domain objects before transmission to the client, and there mapped to view models before passing them to the display layer. In simple applications, the domain objects can often be directly reused as DTOs and passed through directly to the display layer, so that there is only one unified data model. For more complex applications you don't want to expose the entire domain model to the client, so a mapping from domain models to DTOs is necessary. Having a separate view model that duplicates the data from the DTOs almost never makes sense.
However, the reason why this notion is outdated rather than just plain wrong is that some (mainly older) frameworks/technologies require it, as their domain and view models are not POJOS and instead tied directly to the framework.
Most notably, Entity Beans in J2EE prior to the EJB 3 standard were not POJOs and instead were proxy objects constructed by the app server - it was simply not possible to send them to the client, so you had no choice about haing a separate DTO layer - it was mandatory.
Although DTO is not an outdated pattern, it is often applied needlessly, which might make it appear outdated.
From Java guru Adam Bien:
The most misused pattern in the Java Enterprise community is the DTO. DTO was clearly defined as a solution for a distribution problem. DTO was meant to be a coarse-grained data container which efficiently transports data between processes (tiers). ~ Adam Bien
From Martin Fowler:
DTOs are called Data Transfer Objects because their whole purpose is to shift data in expensive remote calls. They are part of implementing a coarse grained interface which a remote interface needs for performance. Not just do you not need them in a local context, they are actually harmful both because a coarse-grained API is more difficult to use and because you have to do all the work moving data from your domain or data source layer into the DTOs. ~ Martin Fowler
Here is a Java EE specific example of a common but incorrect use of the DTO pattern. If you're unfamiliar with Java EE, you just need to know the MVC pattern: a "JSF ManagedBean" is a class used by the View, and a "JPA Entity" is the Model in the MVC pattern.
So, for example, say you have a JSF ManagedBean. A common question is whether the bean should hold a reference to a JPA Entity directly, or should it maintain a reference to some intermediary object which is later converted to an Entity. I have heard this intermediary object referred to as a DTO, but if your ManagedBeans and Entities are operating within the same JVM, then there is little benefit to using the DTO pattern.
Futhermore, consider Bean Validation annotations (again, if you're unfamiliar with Java EE, know that Bean Validation is an API for validating data). Your JPA Entities are likely annotated with #NotNull and #Size validations. If you're using a DTO, you'll want to repeat these validations in your DTO so that clients using your remote interface don't need to send a message to find out they've failed basic validation. Imagine all that extra work of copying Bean Validation annotations between your DTO and Entity, but if your View and Entities are operating within the same JVM, there is no need to take on this extra work: just use the Entities.
The Catalog of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture provides a concise explanation of DTOs, and here are more references I found illuminating:
HOW TO DEAL WITH J2EE AND DESIGN PATTERNS
How to use DTO in JSF + Spring + Hibernate
Pros and Cons of Data Transfer Objects Martin Fowler's description of DTO
Martin Fowler explains the
problem with DTOs. Apparently they were being misused as early
as 2004

Most of this comes down to Clean Architecture and a focus on separation of concerns
My biggest use-case for the entities is so i don't litter the DTO's with runtime variables or methods that i've added in for convenience (such as display names / values or post-calculated values)
If its a very simple entity then there isn't so much of a big deal about it, but if you're being extremely strict with Clean then there becomes a lot of redundant models (DTO, DBO, Entity)
Its really a preference in how much you want to dedicate to strict Clean architecture
https://medium.com/android-dev-hacks/detailed-guide-on-android-clean-architecture-9eab262a9011

There is an advantage, even if very small, to having a separation of layers in your architecture, and having objects "morph" as they travel through the layers. this decoupling allows you to replace any layer in your software with minimal change, just update the mapping of fields between 2 objects and your all set.
If the 2 objects have the same members...well, then that's what Apache Commons BeanUtils.copyProperties() is for ;)

Other people have already informed you of the benefits of DTO, here I will talk about how to solve the trouble of maintaining one more DTO version object.
I deveploy a library beanKnife to automatically generate a dto. It will create a new class base the original pojo. You can filter the inherited properties, modify existing properties or add new properties. All you need is just writing a configuration class, and the library will do the left things for you. The configuration support inheritance feature, so you can extract the common part to simpify the configuration even more.
Here is the example
#Entity
class Pojo1 {
private int a;
#OneToMany(mappedBy="b")
private List<Pojo2> b;
}
#Entity
class Pojo2 {
private String a;
#ManyToOne()
private Pojo1 b;
}
// Include all properties. By default, nothing is included.
// To change this behaviour, here use a base configuration and all other final configuration will inherit it.
#PropertiesIncludePattern(".*")
// By default, the generated class name is the original class name append with "View",
// This annotation change the behaviour. Now class Pojo1 will generate the class Pojo1Dto
#ViewGenNameMapper("${name}Dto")
class BaseConfiguration {
}
// generate Pojo1Dto, which has a pojo2 info list b instead of pojo2 list
#ViewOf(value = Pojo1.class)
class Pojo1DtoConfiguration extends BaseConfiguration {
private List<Pojo2Info> b;
}
// generate Pojo1Info, which exclude b
#ViewOf(value = Pojo1.class, genName="Pojo1Info", excludes = "b")
class Pojo1InfoConfiguration extends BaseConfiguration {}
// generate Pojo2Dto, which has a pojo1 info b instead of pojo1
#ViewOf(value = Pojo2.class)
class Pojo2DtoConfiguration extends BaseConfiguration {
private Pojo1Info b;
}
// generate Pojo2Info, which exclude b
#ViewOf(value = Pojo2.class, genName="Pojo2Info", excludes = "b")
class Pojo2InfoConfiguration extends BaseConfiguration {}
will generate
class Pojo1Dto {
private int a;
private List<Pojo2Info> b;
}
class Pojo1Info {
private int a;
}
class Pojo2Dto {
private String a;
private Pojo1Info b;
}
class Pojo2Info {
private String a;
}
Then use it like this
Pojo1 pojo1 = ...
Pojo1Dto pojo1Dto = Pojo1Dto.read(pojo1);
Pojo2 pojo2 = ...
Pojo2Dto pojo2Dto = Pojo2Dto.read(pojo2);

Jhipster4: what are the benefits of using DTO

Jhipster4 adds Data Transfer Objects (DTO) just what is the benefit of using DTO objects?

Main benefit is to control more precisely which properties you expose from your entities and also to expose entity aggregates rather than single entities.

DTO, stands for Data Transfer Object, is a design pattern conceived to reduce the number of calls when working with remote interfaces.
The advantage of using DTOs, is that they can help hiding implementation details of domain objects (aka. entities). Exposing entities through endpoints can become a security issue if we do not carefully handle what properties can be changed through what operations.
For context, here is an example endpoint using DTOs in Java (Spring Boot):
public class ProductDTO {
private String name;
private Double price;
}
public class Product {
private Long id;
private String name;
private Double price;
}
#PostMapping("/products")
public ResponseEntity<ProductDTO> createProduct(
#RequestBody Product request
) { ... }

Go Through this link about DTO.
Data Transfer Object
An object that carries data between processes in order to reduce the number of method calls.
The main reason for using a Data Transfer Object is to batch up what would be multiple remote calls into a single call, it's worth mentioning that another advantage is to encapsulate the serialization mechanism for transferring data over the wire. By encapsulating the serialization like this, the DTOs keep this logic out of the rest of the code and also provide a clear point to change serialization should you wish.

Practical use of Value Objects in Spring MVC application

In my application written in Hibernate and Spring MVC I've got simple classes representing Customer, his main office Address and list of Locations of rest of his offices. There is a form that allows to add and edit data of Customer, then Spring MVC maps it to DTO, validates, sends down to Service which converts it to (slightly different) Entity and saves.
I thought about using value objects for representing and implicit validation for some objects - i.e. PhoneNumber, Address, but I don't really know how to use them in these frameworks - even if I think I understand the Value Object concept and immutability.
If I will use them in DTOs used in presentation layer then I can't rely on Spring mechanism of mapping fields from form to object - because there are no setters. And I must do the mapping manually in Controller or Service.
Should I use Value Objects in Entity (embed them)? Or maybe this is too simple case to use Value Objects at all?

Your question is not primarily about value objects, but your main concern (if I understand correctly) is how to send data from a web form, validate the data and save the data in entities.
Create a form object such as MyForm with all fields that the user can enter in your screen. The form object serves to transport your data to the server, for example:
class MyForm {
#NotBlank
private String name;
#NotBlank
private String phoneNumber;
#NotBlank
private String address;
// getters and setters
}
On the server side controller validate, convert and store the data:
#Controller
class GuestbookController {
#RequestMapping(value = "/guestbook", method = RequestMethod.GET)
String myget(Model model, MyForm form) {
// put data on model
}
#RequestMapping(value = "/mysubmit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
String mysubmit(#Valid MyForm form, Errors errors, Model model) {
if (errors.hasErrors()) {
return myget(model, form);
}
myrepository.save(new MyEntity(form.getName(), form.getPhoneNumber(), form.getAddress()));
return "redirect:/myview";
}
}
You probably need more details about the address than what fits in a single String. Then, yes, using a value object containing all the address details is fine.

here is my humble response.
DTOs are simple data containers with no logic,
and value objects are the opposite and encapsulate the logic.
Just a funny thing, DTOs were called value objects in the past in Java.
One way to see it (as I read it) is to let value objects encapsulate all the logic for entities, entities that handle only identity.
DTOs allow decoupling the domain model from the UI (or any other ports/adapters).
Should value objects be used outside the domain layer ? I don't know but personally I don't do it. In my setups, they are used by the application layer and inside the domain, but outside the application layer there is only DTOs.
I have DTOs that Spring can handle and data mappers to do the translation (dto to model at the UI/app layers border). The DTOs generally can have setters (event public property according to some people).
Now, if you want to use immutable object mapped by the framework, the solution depends on the technology you are using. When I do webservices with JSON (and Jackson), I map immutable commands object directly with #JsonCreator annotation on constructor but I couple my pojos to jackson. To avoid this, you can also add your customer serializers to the framework to let it convert automatically the data structure around controller method parameters.
Otherwise, you always can do mapping with data mapper or factory methods. (I believe you wrote a post about that...)

DTO objects for each entity

I have inherited an application written in Java that uses JPA to access a database. The application uses an design pattern that I haven't come across before and I would really appricate some guidance on why this pattern is used. Like many applications, we have a front end, middleware, and back end database. The database is accessed via DAOs. Each method on the DAO loads a entity-DTO which is just a POJO with nothing but getters and setters and that entity-DTO is then passed into a entity-proper that has other methods that change the entity state. An example [class names changed to protect the inocent]
enum Gender
{
Male,
Female
}
class PersonDTO
{
private String mFirstName;
private String mLastName;
private Gender mGender;
...
String getFirstName() { return this.mFirstName; }
String setFirstName(String name) { this.mFirstName = name; }
// etc
}
class Person
{
PersonDTO mDTO;
Person(PersonDTO dto)
{
mDTO = dto;
}
String getFirstName() { return mDTO.getFirstName() }
String setFirstName(String name) { mDTO.setFirstName(name); }
// and so on
void marry( Person aNotherPerson )
{
if( this.getGender()==Gender.Female &&
aNotherPerson.getGender()==Gender.Male)
{
this.setLastName( aNotherPerson.getLastName() );
}
aNotherPerson.marry( this );
}
}
This is repeated across 30 or so entity classes, doubled to 60 with the DTOs, and I just cant get my head around why. I understand (bits) about seperation of converns and I also understand (bits) about the difference between an EAO based design to say an active record based design.
But does it really have to go this far? Should there always be at least one "DB" object that contains nothing but getters and setters that map to the DB fields?

Disclaimer: there are varying opinions on this subject and depending on your system's architecture you might not have a choice.
With that said... I've seen this pattern implemented before, not a huge fan of it, in my opinion is duplicates large amounts of code without adding any real value. It seems to be particularly popular in systems with XML APIs like SOAP where it might be difficult to map XML structure directly to your object structure. In your particular case it seems to be even worse because on top of duplicate getFirstName()/getLastName() methods, there is business logic (which belongs in the service layer) coded right into a pojo (which should be a simple data transfer object like the DTO). Why should the pojo know that only people of opposite sex can get married?
To help better understand why, can you explain where these DTOs come from? Is there a front-end submitting data to a controller which then converts it to a DTO, which is then used to populate your entity-proper with data?

It could also be that they are using this just to separate the JPA annotations from the rich domain object.
So I'm guessing that somebody didn't like having JPA annotations and the rich domain object behaviour in one class. Somebody could have also argued that the JPA annotation and the rich domain object should not be in the same layer (because the annotations mixes the concerns) so you would get this kind of separation if you won this argument.
Another place where you'd see this kind of thing happening is when you want to abstract similar annotations away from the rich domain objects (like jaxb annotations in web services for example).
So the intent might be that the DTO serves as sort of the serialization mechanism from code to the database, which is very similar to the intent mentioned here by martin fowler.

This doesn't appear to be a known pattern.
In general
it is common to maintain a separate object to represent the record in the database, referred to as domain object.
the CRUD operations on the object are part of a DAO class and other business operations would be part of a Manager class, but none of these classes store the domain object as a member variable, i.e. neither DAO nor Manager carry state. They are just processing elements working on domain objects passed in as parameters.
a DTO is used for communication between the front-end and back-end to render data from DB or to accept input from end-user
DTOs are transformed to Domain objects by Manager class, where validations and modifications are performed per business rules. Such domain objects are persisted in the DB using DAO class.

I have worked on one project where we have DTOs for the sole purpose of transferring information from front-end controller to some facade layer. Then facade layer is responsible for converting these DTOs to domain objects.
The idea behind this layering is to decouple front-end (view) from domain. Sometimes DTOs can contain multiple domain objects for aggregated view. But domain layer always presents clean, reusable, cacheable(if required) objects.

design of building DTO from domain object

I have a graph of domain objects and i need to build a DTO to send it to the view. How to design it properly? I see 2 options where can I put the DTO building code:
1) Into the DTO constructor. But then the domain object has to present all fields to DTO via getters so it's not a DDD.
public DTO(DomainObject domain) {
/// access internal fields of different domain object.
}
2) Into the domain object. There will be no problem with accessing fields but the domain object will grow very fast when new view are added.
public DTO1 createDTO1() {
...
}
public DTO2 createDTO1() {
...
}
// and so on...
How should I build DTOs properly?

I think there is a bigger issue at play here. You should not be querying your domain. Your domain should be focused on behaviour and, as such, will quite possibly not contain the data in a format suitable for a view, especially for display purposes.
If you are sending back your entire, say, Customer object to Edit then you are performing entity-based interactions that are very much data focused. You may want to try and place more attention on task-based interactions.
So to get data to your view I'd suggest a simple query layer. Quite often you will need some denormalized data to improve query performance and that will not be present in your domain anyway. If you do need DTOs then map them directly from your data source. If you can get away with a more generic data container structure then that is first prize.

Variants:
Constructor with simple types in DTO: public DTO(Long id, String title, int year, double price)
Separate class - converter with methods like: DTO1 createDTO1(DomainObject domain)
Framework for copy properties from one object to other, like Dozer: http://dozer.sourceforge.net/

1) ... the domain object has to present all fields to DTO via getters ...
2) ... the domain object will grow very fast ...
As you can see, the problem is that both alternatives are coupling your model with your DTOs, so you need to decouple them: introduce a layer between them in charge of performing the mapping/translation.
You may find this SO question useful.

domain object has to present all fields to DTO via getters so it's not
a DDD
Just because a domain object has getters doesn't make it anemic or anti-DDD. You can have getters and behavior.
Besides, since you want to publish to the View a DTO containing particular data, I can't see how this data can remain private inside the domain object. You have to expose it somehow.
Solution 2) breaks separation of concerns and layering (it's not a domain object's business to create a DTO) so I'd stick with 1) or one of #pasha701's alternatives.