Awesome

Java Objects to Property List Serializer

java-plist-serializer is a Java library that can be used to convert Java Objects into their Property List representation.

Usage is very simple:

Comment comment = new Comment("maciej walkowiak", "hello plist");
PlistSerializer serializer = new PlistSerializerImpl();

String xml = serializer.serialize(comment); // creates xml just for serialized object
String validXml = serializer.toXML(comment); // creates valid xml with header, dtd include

Supported data types

Out of the box serializer supports fields with types:

• Boolean, Short, Integer, Long, Float, Double and their primitive equivalents
• String
• java.util.Date
• java.util.Collection
• java.util.Map

When object passed to serialization is not of one fields included in that list - serializer iterates through its fields using reflection, serializes each field and wraps result into <dict />.

Adding custom serializer

If there is a need to add serializer for another data type it can be done by implementing <code>pl.maciejwalkowiak.plist.handler.Handler</code> interface and then added to PlistSerializer by calling <code>pl.maciejwalkowiak.plist.PlistSerializerImpl#setAdditionalHandlers</code>.

An example how to implement and add custom data type serializer can be found in test method: <code>PlistSerializerImplTest#testAdditionalHandler</code>

Customization

There are few ways to customize XML output:

• object fields can be ignored by annotating them with <code>@PlistIgnore</code>
• object field by default is serialized to <code><key /></code> with field's name content. To provide custom key name use <code>@PlistAlias</code> annotation
• you can choose or define your own key naming strategy. Currently keys can be created with exactly the same name as field by using <code>DefaultNamingStrategy</code> or fields can be changed to uppercase using <code>UppercaseNamingStrategy</code>. You can implement your own naming policy by implementing <code>pl.maciejwalkowiak.plist.NamingStrategy</code> and registering it by <code>PlistSerializerImpl</code> constructor argument

Example

We have classes:

public class Post {
	private String title;
	private Integer views = 0;
	private List<Comment> comments = new ArrayList<Comment>();
	private Author author;

	public Post(Author author, String title, Integer views) {
		this.title = title;
		this.views = views;
		this.author = author;
	}
}

public class Comment {
	private String content;
	private String author;

	public Comment(String author, String content) {
		this.content = content;
		this.author = author;
	}
}

public class Author {
	private String name;
}

And execute code:

Post post = new Post(new Author("jason bourne"), "java-plist-serializer introduction", 9);
post.addComment(new Comment("maciejwalkowiak", "first comment"));
post.addComment(new Comment("john doe", "second comment"));

String xml = plistSerializer.toXmlPlist(post);

<code>xml</code> will contain unformatted version of:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
	<dict>
		<key>author</key>
		<dict>
			<key>name</key>
			<string>jason bourne</string>
		</dict>
		<key>comments</key>
		<array>
			<dict>
				<key>author</key>
				<string>maciejwalkowiak</string>
				<key>content</key>
				<string>first comment</string>
			</dict>
			<dict>
				<key>author</key>
				<string>john doe</string>
				<key>content</key>
				<string>second comment</string>
			</dict>
		</array>
		<key>title</key>
		<string>java-plist-serializer introduction</string>
		<key>views</key>
		<integer>9</integer>
	</dict>
</plist>

Spring Integration

It is possible to use PlistSerializer together with Spring MVC. To return property lists in a response of calling some Spring Controller you can use <code>pl.maciejwalkowiak.plist.spring.PlistView</code>.

There are several ways to configure Spring MVC. The easiest to understand example of usage of <code>PlistView</code>:

@Controller
public class BlogController {
	@RequestMapping(value = "/loadBlogPost", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public ModelAndView loadBlogPost() {
		Post post = new Post(new Author("jason bourne"), "java-plist-serializer introduction", 9);
		post.addComment(new Comment("maciejwalkowiak", "first comment"));
		post.addComment(new Comment("john doe", "second comment"));

		ModelMap model = new ModelMap();
		model.addAttribute("RESULT", notification);

		return new ModelAndView(new PlistView(), model);
	}
}

Installation

Current stable version is 1.0.1. Its not uploaded to any public Maven repository. In order to use it please <a href="https://github.com/maciejwalkowiak/java-plist-serializer/zipball/v1.0">download source code</a> and run <code>mvn install</code>.

Known issues

If you have cycle dependency in serialized object tree you will get StackOverFlowError unless you ignore reference by annotating with <code>@PlistIgnore</code>