Question

I’m looking to write an application. Think e-commerce. But think, an e-commerce site that is powered by another provider.

The scenario would be thus: I would white-label an e-commerce site front that’s powered by a client’s existing e-commerce platform, whether this be Magento, CubeCart, Prestashop, or so on.

These platforms are all going to have their own naming conventions and whatnot, and I want a common interface within my app. For example:

class Product {
    var $title;
    var $price;
    var $image;
    var $description;
    // and so on
}

Obviously different providers may call things differently. For example, title may be product_title in a provider, or product_name, or productTitle, and so on. Another example: price may be cost, or unit_price, and so on. Hopefully the problem becomes apparent.

Ideally, I’d like to be pointed to the best design pattern to abstract a service from my app’s business classes, so I can add providers without having to re-factor anything in my app down the line.

What design pattern would be the best for the above scenario?

Answer 1

I’d go with something like this:

Depending on the providers you want to integrate with, you may want to add additional Decorators or Facades (for example to simplify API) between Adapters and actual providers.