andro-s / fx-gson

A Gson extension to serialize JavaFX properties as their values, and deserialize values into properties.

FX Gson

A set of type adapters for Google Gson to serialize JavaFX properties as their values, and deserialize values into properties.

Why FX Gson?

In JavaFX, POJOs usually contain Property objects instead of primitives. When serialized with Gson, we don't want to see the internals of such Property objects in the produced JSON, but rather the actual value held by the property.

For instance, suppose the Person class is defined like this:

public class Person {
    private final StringProperty firstName;
    private final StringProperty lastName;

    public Person(String firstName, String lastName) {
        this.firstName = new SimpleStringProperty(firstName);
        this.lastName = new SimpleStringProperty(lastName);
    }
    
    // getters / setters / prop getters
}

Here is how it is serialized:

With Gson	With FxGson
{ "firstName": { "name": "", "value": "Hans", "valid": true, "helper": { "observable": {} } }, "lastName": { "name": "", "value": "Muster", "valid": true, "helper": { "observable": {} } } }	{ "firstName": "Hans", "lastName": "Muster" }

Convincing, eh?

Usage

The simple way

You can use the built-in factory methods directly:

// to handle only Properties and Observable collections
Gson fxGson = FxGson.create();

// to also handle the Color & Font classes
Gson fxGsonWithExtras = FxGson.createWithExtras();

FxGson can also return a builder so that you can add your own configuration to it:

Gson fxGson = FxGson.coreBuilder()
                    .registerTypeAdapterFactory(new MyFactory())
                    .disableHtmlEscaping()
                    .create();

Gson fxGsonWithExtras = FxGson.fullBuilder()
                              .registerTypeAdapter(Pattern.class, new PatternSerializer())
                              .setPrettyPrinting()
                              .create();

You can find more info on the built-in "core" and "full" builder in the Wiki.

Configuring an existing builder to handle JavaFX properties

Sometimes you don't control the creation of the GsonBuilder you are using, because you take it from some library or some other piece of code. In this case, use the provided helper methods to add FxGson configuration to an existing GsonBuilder:

GsonBuilder builder = MyLib.getBuilder();
Gson gson = FxGson.addFxSupport(builder).create();

Going full control

You will find more customization info in this dedicated wiki page.

Add the dependency

In Gradle

repositories {
    jcenter()
}

dependencies {
    compile 'org.hildan.fxgson:fx-gson:2.0.0'
}

In Maven

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.hildan.fxgson</groupId>
  <artifactId>fx-gson</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.0</version>
  <type>pom</type>
</dependency>

Note: the artifact is on Bintray JCenter, not in Maven Central, so make sure you point your maven to JCenter by adding the repo to your settings.xml using the URL http://jcenter.bintray.com.

You can find a complete XML example in the "Set me up!" blue rectangle on the JCenter home page.

License

Code released under the MIT license