An Anti-Corruption Layer (ACL) in Domain-Driven Design (DDD) is a design pattern that acts as a boundary between different subsystems or bounded contexts. Its primary purpose is to prevent the intrusion of foreign concepts and models into the domain model, thereby preserving the integrity and purity of the domain model. The ACL achieves this by translating and adapting data and interactions between different contexts, ensuring that each subsystem can operate independently with its own internal language and model.
Purpose of the Anti-Corruption Layer
Preserves Domain Integrity: By isolating the domain model from external systems, the ACL prevents external concepts from corrupting the domain model's purity.
Encapsulates Technical Details: The ACL hides the specifics of how external systems work, allowing the domain model to focus on core business logic.
Promotes Loose Coupling: The ACL enables the domain model to be independent of external systems, making it easier to change or replace these systems without affecting the domain model itself[1][3][6].
How the Anti-Corruption Layer Works
The ACL typically involves several well-known design patterns such as Facade and Adapter. These patterns are used to map between foreign domain models and APIs to types and interfaces that are part of the domain model. Here is a simplified sequence of interactions within an ACL:
The Domain Model sends a request to the ACL.
The ACL uses an Adapter to translate the domain request into the format and semantics of the external system.
The Adapter communicates with the external system to send the translated request.
The external system processes the request and sends back a response to the Adapter.
The Adapter translates the response into the format and semantics of the domain model.
The ACL provides the translated data to the Domain Model[1][3][9].
Example of an Anti-Corruption Layer
Scenario: Integrating an e-commerce platform with various payment gateways.
Problem: Each payment gateway has its own data format, error codes, and business rules. Directly integrating these gateways into the e-commerce domain would pollute the domain model with external concepts.
Solution: Implement an Anti-Corruption Layer.
Translation: The ACL translates data between the e-commerce domain and the payment gateway domain. For example, it converts domain objects to the format expected by the payment gateway and vice versa.
Error Handling: The ACL maps payment gateway-specific error codes to standard error codes in the e-commerce domain, making error handling consistent.
Adaptation: If a payment gateway changes its API...
