Dumping a java object's properties

Question

Is there a library that will recursively dump/print an objects properties? I\'m looking for something similar to the console.dir() function in Firebug.

I\'m aware o

Answer 1

You can use ReflectionToStringBuilder with a custom ToStringStyle, for example:

class MyStyle extends ToStringStyle {
    private final static ToStringStyle instance = new MyStyle();

    public MyStyle() {
        setArrayContentDetail(true);
        setUseShortClassName(true);
        setUseClassName(false);
        setUseIdentityHashCode(false);
        setFieldSeparator(", " + SystemUtils.LINE_SEPARATOR + "  ");
    }

    public static ToStringStyle getInstance() {
        return instance;
    };

    @Override
    public void appendDetail(StringBuffer buffer, String fieldName, Object value) {
        if (!value.getClass().getName().startsWith("java")) {
            buffer.append(ReflectionToStringBuilder.toString(value, instance));
        } else {
            super.appendDetail(buffer, fieldName, value);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void appendDetail(StringBuffer buffer, String fieldName, Collection value) {
        appendDetail(buffer, fieldName, value.toArray());
    }
}

And then you invoke it like:

ReflectionToStringBuilder.toString(value, MyStyle.getInstance());

Beware of circular references though!

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You can also use json-lib (http://json-lib.sourceforge.net) and just do:

JSONObject.fromObject(value);