Passive data structure

In object-oriented programming and computer science, a passive data structure (PDS – not to be confused with IBM's partitioned data sets), is a term for a record, to contrast with objects. That is, a PDS is a data structure that is represented only as passive collections of field values (instance variables), without using object-oriented features. It is also known as a plain old data structure, or plain old data.

Passive data structures are appropriate when there is a part of a system where it should be clearly indicated that the detailed logic for data manipulation and integrity are elsewhere. PDSs are often found at the boundaries of a system, where information is being moved to and from other systems or persistent storage and the problem domain logic that is found in other parts of the system is not relevant. For example, PDS would be convenient for representing the field values of objects that are being constructed from external data, in a part of the system where the semantic checks and interpretations needed for valid objects have not yet been applied.