Question

Imagine the UI passes back an XMl node as such:

<properties>
<type> Source </type>
<name> Blooper </name>
<delay>
    <type> Deterministic </type>
    <parameters>
       <param>  4 </param>
    </parameters>
<delay>
<batch>
    <type> Erlang </type>
    <parameters>
       <param>  4 </param>
        <param>  6 </param>
    </parameters>
<batch>

And behind the scene what it is asking that you instantiate a class as such:

new Source("blooper", new Exp(4), new Erlang(4,6);

The problem lies in the fact that you don’t know what class you will need to processing, and you will be sent a list of these class definitions with instructions on how they can be linked to each other.

I’ve heard that using a BeanFactoryPostProcessor might be helpful, or a property editor/convertor. However I am at a loss as to how best to use them to solve my problem.

Any help you can provide will be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Castor allows you to map XML to java objects, and XSLT will allow you tweek the GUI XML to match what Castor is expecting

Thanks for all the hints and tips guys!