XStream - Converters

Using Converter

Let us use a SingleValueConvertor whose purpose is to convert an object into a single string. We will use SingleValueConvertor to write an object as attribute string.

Create a Converter

class NameConverter implements SingleValueConverter {

   public Object fromString(String name) {
      String[] nameparts = name.split(",");
      return new Name(nameparts[0], nameparts[1]);
   }
   
   public String toString(Object name) {
      return ((Name)name).getFirstName() + "," + ((Name)name).getLastName();
   }
   
   public boolean canConvert(Class type) {
      return type.equals(Name.class);
   }	
}

Register a Converter

xstream.registerConverter(new NameConverter());

Example without Converter

Let us first test the code without converter in XStream.

Create a java class file named XStreamTester in C:\>XStream_WORKSPACE\com\howcodex\xstream.

File: XStreamTester.java

package com.howcodex.xstream;

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;

import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys;
import javax.xml.transform.Source;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.sax.SAXSource;
import javax.xml.transform.sax.SAXTransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;

import org.xml.sax.InputSource;

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.annotations.XStreamAlias;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.annotations.XStreamAsAttribute;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.StaxDriver;

public class XStreamTester {
   public static void main(String args[]) {
   
      XStreamTester tester = new XStreamTester();
      XStream xstream = new XStream(new StaxDriver());
      Student student = tester.getStudentDetails();
      xstream.autodetectAnnotations(true);
      
      //Object to XML Conversion
      String xml = xstream.toXML(student);
      System.out.println(formatXml(xml));
   }
   
   private Student getStudentDetails() {
      Student student = new Student("Mahesh","Parashar");
      return student;
   }
   
   public static String formatXml(String xml) {
   
      try {
      
         Transformer serializer = SAXTransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
         
         serializer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
         serializer.setOutputProperty("{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount", "2");
         
         Source xmlSource = new SAXSource(new InputSource(
            new ByteArrayInputStream(xml.getBytes())));
         StreamResult res =  new StreamResult(new ByteArrayOutputStream());
         
         serializer.transform(xmlSource, res);
         
         return new String(((ByteArrayOutputStream)res.getOutputStream()).toByteArray());
         
      } catch(Exception e) {
         return xml;
      }
   }
}

@XStreamAlias("student")
class Student {

   @XStreamAlias("name")
   @XStreamAsAttribute
   private Name studentName;

   public Student(String firstName, String lastName) {
      this.studentName = new Name(firstName, lastName);
   }

   public Name getName() {
      return studentName;
   }	
}

class Name {
   private String firstName;
   private String lastName;

   public Name(String firstName, String lastName) {
      this.firstName = firstName;
      this.lastName = lastName;
   }

   public String getFirstName() {
      return firstName;
   }

   public String getLastName() {
      return lastName;
   }     
}

Verify the Result

Compile the classes using javac compiler as follows −

C:\XStream_WORKSPACE\com\howcodex\xstream>javac XStreamTester.java

Now run the XStreamTester to see the result −

C:\XStream_WORKSPACE\com\howcodex\xstream>java XStreamTester

Verify the output as follows −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<student>
   <name>
      <firstName>Mahesh</firstName>
      <lastName>Parashar</lastName>
   </name>
</student>

Example with Converter

Let us now test the code with converter in XStream.