Develop Reference

Java iterate over class fields to create other class

I have a class like this:
public class Example {
private String a;
private Integer b;
private Boolean c;
private List<AnotherClass> d;
}
and I want to convert it to something like this:
[
{
name: "a",
value: "a value"
},
{
name: "b",
value: "1",
},
{
name: "c",
value: "true",
}
]
So, I create a class like this:
public class Test {
private String name;
private String value;
}
I want to have a method to iterate through the Example class so it will produce the Test class without including d attribute. How to achieve that?

This is something you can do easily with reflection. In the example below, I renamed class Test to Property because it represents a key-value pair. If you are happy with using whatever toString() returns as the value for a field, then the solution is pretty simple:
public class Property {
private final String name;
private final String value;
public Property(String name, String value) {
this.name = name;
this.value = value;
}
public static List<Property> toProperties(Object object, String... fieldNames)
throws ReflectiveOperationException
{
ArrayList<Property> properties = new ArrayList<>();
for( String fieldName : fieldNames ) {
Field field = object.getClass().getDeclaredField(fieldName);
properties.add(new Property(fieldName, field.get(object).toString()));
}
return properties;
}
public String toString() {
return String.format("%s: \"%s\"", name, value);
}
}
This sample requires you to specify the names of the desired fields explicitly, for example:
List<Property> properties = Property.toProperties(myExample, "a", "b", "c");
If you'd rather have the fields be auto-detected based on some criterion (for example all primitive and String-typed fields, then you could add this logic within toProperties and get rid of the varargs.

you would need to have some appropriate getters in class Example, and a proper constructor in class Test to initialize the object instance variables like
public Test (String name, int value) {
this.name = name;
this.value = value'
}
Then for each instance of class Example - lets say you have multiple of those in an array or list - you could iterate over them, retrieve the values you want via the getter methods, and initialize one Test object for each one, eg
List<Test> yourListOfTestInstances = new ArrayList<>();
for (Example exampleObject : yourExampleObjectsListOrArray) {
yourListOfTestInstances.add(new Test(exampleObject.getA() , exampleObject.getB()));
}
Then for each created Test instance inside your ArrayList, you could easily build your JSON as needed (even though I do not fully understand why you even need at all this intermediate Test class to do that)

Jackson and deserialisation when you don't know the JSON tag name ahead of time?

I want to use Jackson to deserialise my JSON, from Jira, into a set of POJOs. I have most of what I want working beautifully, now I just have to decode the custom field values.
My input JSON looks like:
{
"expand": "renderedFields,names,schema,operations,editmeta,changelog,versionedRepresentations",
"id": "104144",
"self": "https://jira.internal.net/rest/api/2/issue/104144",
"key": "PRJ-524",
"fields": {
"summary": "Redo unit tests to load from existing project",
"components": [],
"customfield_10240": {
"self": "https://jira.internal.net/rest/api/2/customFieldOption/10158",
"value": "Normal",
"id": "10158"
}
}
I can trivially load the summary and components, since I know ahead of time what the name of those JSON elements are, and can define them in my POJO:
#JsonIgnoreProperties({ "expand", "self", "id", })
public class JiraJson
{
private JiraFields fields;
private String key;
public JiraFields getFields()
{
return fields;
}
public String getKey()
{
return key;
}
public void setFields(JiraFields newFields)
{
fields = newFields;
}
public void setKey(String newKey)
{
key = newKey;
}
}
And similarly for JiraFields:
#JsonIgnoreProperties({ "issuetype", "priority", "status" })
public class JiraFields
{
private List<JiraComponent> components;
private String summary;
public List<JiraComponent> getComponents()
{
return components;
}
public String getSummary()
{
return summary;
}
public void setComponents(List<JiraComponent> newComponents)
{
components = newComponents;
}
public void setSummary(String newSummary)
{
summary = newSummary;
}
}
However, the field custom_10240 actually differs depending on which Jira system this is run against, on one it is custom_10240, on another it is custom_10345, so I cannot hard-code this into the POJO. Using another call, it is possible to know at runtime, before the deserialisation starts, what the name of the field is, but this is not possible at compile time.
Assuming that I want to map the value field into a String on JiraFields called Importance, how do I go about doing that? Or perhaps simpler, how to map this Importance onto a JiraCustomField class?

You can use a method annotated with #JsonAnySetter that accepts all properties that are undefined (and not ignored). in case of a Json Object (like the custom field in the question) Jackson passes a Map that contains all the Object properties (it may even contain Map values in case of nested objects). You can now at run time extract whatever properties you want:
#JsonIgnoreProperties({ "issuetype", "priority", "status" })
public class JiraFields
{
private List<JiraComponent> components;
private String summary;
private String importance;
// getter/setter omitted for brevity
#JsonAnySetter
public void setCustomField(String name, Object value) {
System.out.println(name); // will print "customfield_10240"
if (value instanceof Map) { // just to make sure we got a Json Object
Map<String, Object> customfieldMap = (Map<String, Object>)value;
if (customfieldMap.containsKey("value")) { // check if object contains "value" property
setImportance(customfieldMap.get("value").toString());
}
}
}
}

After searching further, I finally found the JsonAlias annotation. This is still defined at compile time, but I had something that I could search further on!
Further searching, and I found PropertyNamingStrategy, which allows you to rename what JSON field name is expected for a setter/field. This has the advantage in that this is done via a method, and the class can be constructed at runtime.
Here is the class that I used to perform this mapping:
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.PropertyNamingStrategy;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.cfg.MapperConfig;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.introspect.AnnotatedField;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.introspect.AnnotatedMethod;
public final class CustomFieldNamingStrategy
extends PropertyNamingStrategy
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 8263960285216239177L;
private final Map<String, String> fieldRemapping;
private final Map<String, String> reverseRemapping;
public CustomFieldNamingStrategy(Map<String, String> newFieldRemappings)
{
fieldRemapping = newFieldRemappings;
reverseRemapping = fieldRemapping.entrySet()//
.stream()//
.collect(Collectors.toMap(Map.Entry::getValue,
Map.Entry::getKey));
}
#Override
public String nameForField(MapperConfig<?> config, AnnotatedField field, String defaultName)
{
if (field.getDeclaringClass().getName().equals(JiraFields.class.getName()))
{
return reverseRemapping.getOrDefault(defaultName, defaultName);
}
return defaultName;
}
#Override
public String nameForSetterMethod(MapperConfig<?> config, AnnotatedMethod method,
String defaultName)
{
if (method.getDeclaringClass().getName().equals(JiraFields.class.getName()))
{
return reverseRemapping.getOrDefault(defaultName, defaultName);
}
return defaultName;
}
#Override
public String nameForGetterMethod(MapperConfig<?> config, AnnotatedMethod method,
String defaultName)
{
if (method.getDeclaringClass().getName().equals(JiraFields.class.getName()))
{
return reverseRemapping.getOrDefault(defaultName, defaultName);
}
return defaultName;
}
}

deserialize Json into POJO

I am trying to convert the following JSON structure (part of a larger JSON object) to a POJO but getting the exception copied below (using Java/Jackson).
JSON
"outputKeys":
{"ABC":"gGyIioUr4Jfr5QiCm6Z==",
"DEF":"RxHfNyD2JyPOpG5tv3Jaj5g=="}
Java class
private class OutputKeys {
private String key;
private String value;
public OutputKeys(String key, String value) {
this.key = key;
this.value = value;
}
}
&
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
mapper.readValue(jsonString, Test.class);
exception:
no suitable constructor found, can not deserialize from Object value (missing default constructor or creator, or perhaps need to add/enable type information?
Test class has the OutputKeys as an attribute.
Any suggestions would be welcome. I have tried using a List of OutputKeys as well .
Update:
I have tried the following without success:
class OutputKeys {
public Map<String, String> keys;
///with constructor/setter/getters
}
&
class OutputKeys {
public List<OutputKey> keys;
///with constructor/setter/getters
public class OutputKey {
Map<String, String> outputs = new HashMap<>();
// tried this too:
// String key
//String value
}

You require below mentioned single class only, containing
All keys(ABC and DEF)
getters/setters
toString() which you'll use interact with JSON.
public class OutputKeys
{
private String ABC;
private String DEF;
public String getABC ()
{
return ABC;
}
public void setABC (String ABC)
{
this.ABC = ABC;
}
public String getDEF ()
{
return DEF;
}
public void setDEF (String DEF)
{
this.DEF = DEF;
}
#Override
public String toString()
{
return "ClassPojo [ABC = "+ABC+", DEF = "+DEF+"]";
}
}
Let me know if you require more details.

Since the keys were dynamic, I ended up deserializing the data using the iterator on the JsonNode:
jsonNode.get("outputKeys").iterator()
& then getting the relevant dynamic key information via the iterator.

I needed a similar tool for NodeJS. So that I can write tests on parts of a bigger model that was serialized (JSON).
So, if I need only "ABC":"gGyIioUr4Jfr5QiCm6Z==" or "XYZ":{"Hello": "My String", "Content": [1,2,3]}, the only property I care to test at the moment is:
var sutXYX = { Hello: "My String", Content: [ 1, 2, 2]};
I wrote this tool as a utility https://github.com/whindes/PojoScriptifyFromJSON

serialize json array into java objects

I have a JSON array like as shown below which I need to serialize it to my class. I am using Jackson in my project.
[
{
"clientId": "111",
"clientName": "mask",
"clientKey": "abc1",
"clientValue": {}
},
{
"clientId": "111",
"clientName": "mask",
"clientKey": "abc2",
"clientValue": {}
}
]
In above JSON array, clientValue will have another JSON object in it. How can I serialize my above JSON array into my java class using Jackson?
public class DataRequest {
#JsonProperty("clientId")
private String clientId;
#JsonProperty("clientName")
private int clientName;
#JsonProperty("clientKey")
private String clientKey;
#JsonProperty("clientValue")
private Map<String, Object> clientValue;
//getters and setters
}
I have not used jackson before so I am not sure how can I use it to serialize my JSON array into Java objects? I am using jackson annotation here to serialize stuff but not sure what will be my next step?

You can create a utility function shown below. You may want to change the Deserialization feature based on your business needs. In my case, I did not want to fail on unknown properties => (FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false)
static <T> T mapJson(String body,
com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.TypeReference<T> reference) {
T model = null;
if(body == null) {
return model;
}
com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper mapper =
new com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper();
mapper.configure(com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES,
false);
try {
model = mapper.readValue(body, reference);
} catch (IOException e) {
//TODO: log error and handle accordingly
}
return model;
}
You can call it using similar approach as shown below:
mapJson(clientValueJsonString,
new com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.TypeReference<List<DataRequest>>(){});

You can try #JsonAnyGetter and #JsonAnySetter annotations with an inner class object. Also clientName should have type String, not int.
public class DataRequest {
private String clientId;
private String clientName;
private String clientKey;
private ClientValue clientValue;
//getters and setters
}
public class ClientValue {
private Map<String, String> properties;
#JsonAnySetter
public void add(String key, String value) {
properties.put(key, value);
}
#JsonAnyGetter
public Map<String,String> getProperties() {
return properties;
}
}

How to use string to compare with field names in java?

I have a class named MyClass. It has many fields of type MyField. How do I return a reference to a particular field whose name matches a String's value?
public class MyClass{
public MyField field1;
public MyField field2;
public MyField field3;
public MyField whichField(String nameOfField){
//e.g. String = "field3", then return field3
//of course I can do if else, but it will be tedious If I have long list of MyField fields, can I iterate over all field names, and return whose name matches?
}
}
edit
I tried reflection from the answers below, I create a temp placeholder, and I wish to reutrn it but,
MyField temp = MyClass.class.getDeclaredField(whichFieldString);
doesnt work, I get type mismatch, cant convert error
How do I cast this?
How do I return this field?

As an alternative:
If all fields are of the same type and are accessed by their field name (most of the time) you could avoid the hassle and brittleness of using reflection by utilizing a Map.
The map associates a key (in your case the "field name") with a value. Instead of an arbitrary number of fields, MyClass would look like:
public class MyClass {
private final Map<String, MyField> fields = new HashMap<>();
/* code to initially fill the map */
public MyField whichField(String fieldName) {
return fields.get(fieldName);
}
}

You can do this with reflection. Class A has the fields we want to search through:
public class A {
private String field1;
private String field2;
private String field3;
}
And B shows how to iterate over the fields declared in A, matching on a particular field name:
public class B {
public B() {
Field field = findFieldByName("field1");
System.out.println(field);
}
private Field findFieldByName(String name) {
Field[] fields = A.class.getDeclaredFields();
for(Field f : fields) {
if(f.getName().equals(name)) {
return f;
}
}
return null;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
new B();
}
}

You'll have to use reflection:
import java.lang.reflect.Field;
public class MyClass {
public MyField field1;
public MyField field2;
public MyField field3;
public MyField whichField(String nameOfField) {
MyField fieldName = null;
Field[] fields = MyClass.class.getDeclaredFields();
for (Field field : fields) {
if (field.getName().equals(nameOfField)) {
// Do whatever you want to do
}
}
return null;
}
}
class MyField {
}

You may want to use a collection, e.g. Map<String, MyField>.

You can do it easily with reflection
Class<MyClass> clazz = MyClass.class;
Field requieredField = clazz.getDeclaredField("myFielldName");
EDIT
This solution is pertinent is the number of fields is fixed. As it was mentioned in comments and answers, if you want to store a dynamic number of values, then a Map (or a Collection if you only need to enumerate the values) is much more suitable.