Summary

The final pattern in the book, the Partial Population pattern, offers flexibility and the potential for performance benefits. The pattern enhances the Data Transfer patterns from the previous chapter and has a similar structure and similar collaborations as the Data Transfer patterns.

Partial population helps to regulate the data retrieved in a method call to a server. This data has the potential to retrieve many properties from a Web Service. The pattern also helps to trim down the amount of data a service user has to supply to the Web Service to change data. The case study uses the Partial Population pattern for data submitted to the Web Service so that a client does not have to populate an object in full to make a small change to an object. One of the design techniques promoted throughout the book ”using primary keys to identify an object ”aids in this practice. In a case where a customer does not know how you establish the identity of an object, the Partial Population pattern becomes more difficult to implement.