ramazanpolat/flexbean

Flexible Java Bean

FlexBean

Flexible Java Bean

Unlike dynamically typed languages like JavaScript, Java is a statically typed language. Although this is beneficial in some ways, somethimes you will need flexible containers to carry information in it. Because sometimes it is hard to write a Java Bean for every single data type. Furthermore it is impossible to write a Java Bean if you don't know data types and structure of the information beforehand.

For example, you are providing an SQL input to user and user is free to write any SQL to send to database. So it's up to users to write the SQL. That means resultset may have any number of columns with any type. This makes impossible to use regular Java beans to carry informatin. This is where FlexBean comes in. FlexBean provides a flexible class which lets you create any property with any type, any time. Not only that, you can also change type and value of properties in runtime.

Examples:

FlexBean personBean = new FlexBean();

// set some properties, property types automatically inferred.
personBean.set("name", "Ahmet Kaya");
personBean.set("birth", LocalDate.of(1957, 10, 28));
personBean.set("death", LocalDate.of(2000, 11, 16));


Period agePeriod = Period.between(
        personBean.valueOf("birth"),
        personBean.valueOf("death")
);

int age = agePeriod.getYears();

personBean.set("age", age);


// read what we put in personBean
for (String propertyName: personBean.getPropertyNames()){
    System.out.println(String.format("Property:%s - type:%s - value:%s",
            propertyName,
            personBean.typeOf(propertyName),
            personBean.valueOf(propertyName)
            ));
}

Outputs:

Property:name - type:class java.lang.String - value:Ahmet Kaya
Property:birth - type:class java.time.LocalDate - value:1957-10-28
Property:death - type:class java.time.LocalDate - value:2000-11-16
Property:age - type:class java.lang.Integer - value:43