Software Architect's Handbook

Stamp coupling (data-structured coupling)

Stamp coupling is a fairly low type of coupling. It is also known as data-structure coupling because it occurs when modules share a composite data structure. By composite data structure, we mean that it is data that has some internal structure to it, such as a record.

When a composite data structure is shared between two modules, some of the fields in the data structure may not even be used. For example, a module passes a composite data structure to another module, which then just uses one field in it.

It is similar to data coupling, except that the data shared is a composite data type rather than primitive data values and that not all of the values shared may be used.