Groovy: isn't there a stringToMap out of the box?

Question

as a tcl developer starting with groovy, I am a little bit surprised about the list and map support in groovy. Maybe I am missing something here.

I am used to conver

Answer 1

Not exactly native groovy, but useful for serializing to JSON:

import groovy.json.JsonBuilder
import groovy.json.JsonSlurper

def map = ['a':2,'b':4 ]
def s = new JsonBuilder(map).toString()
println s

assert map == new JsonSlurper().parseText(s)

with meta-programming:

import groovy.json.JsonBuilder
import groovy.json.JsonSlurper

Map.metaClass.toJson   = { new JsonBuilder(delegate).toString() }
String.metaClass.toMap = { new JsonSlurper().parseText(delegate) }

def map = ['a':2,'b':4 ]
assert map.toJson() == '{"a":2,"b":4}'
assert map.toJson().toMap() == map

unfortunately, it's not possible to override the toString() method...