Question

Is it possible to convert a plain Java Object with the usual getXXX and setXXX methods for its fields to a key-value pair, like Map<String, Object>?

I need to to this without relying on Java reflection, so it can be used with a Java-To-Javascript compiler like GWT.

Answer 1

I’ve done this before by using a MapSerialisation interface:

interface MapSerialisation {
    Map<String, Object> toMap();
    void fromMap(Map<String, Object>);
}

Implement that on each of your model objects and use that for translation.

Another method I’ve used is Google Collections’ Transformers, and having model transformation functions to convert between a Java object and a structure that Javascript would like.

I’d probably be tempted to use Jackson to serialise into JSON though.