MARSHAL

a simple marshaling and unmarshalling library for processing.

Usage

Supported data formats

Currently marshal supports the following formats:

json
xml
yaml

Creating the Marshal Object

Pass this to the constructor of the marshal object like so:

Marhsal marshal = new Marshal(this);

Saving an Object To a File

Lets assume for these examples that we have a class called Message with one property: content.

Message message = new Message();
message.setContent("hey");

//  a file called message.json will be created in the data folder
//  with the contents:
//      { "content": "hey" }
//
marshal.save(message, "message.json", DataFormat.JSON);

If we already have a File object we can use that instead:

Message message = new Message();
message.setContent("hey");

File file = new File("message.json");

marshal.save(message, file, DataFormat.JSON);

Loading an Object From a File

Let's assume we have a file called message.xml in the data folder.
We can load it to an object like so:

Message message = marshal.load("message.xml", Message.class, DataFormat.XML);

If you already have a File object we can use that instead:

File file = new File("message.xml");
Message message = marshal.load(file, Message.class, DataFormat.XML);

Marshaling an Object to A String

Rather than write an object to a file we can marshal it to a string to use later.

Message message = new Message();
message.setContent("hey");

String output = marshal.marshal(message, DataFormat.JSON);

// prints { "content": "hey" }
println(output);

Unmarshalling a String to an Object

If we have a a marshaled string we can unmarshall it back into an object:

String json = "{ \"content\": \"hey\" }";
Message message = marshal.unmarshal(json, Message.class, DataFormat.JSON);

// prints hey
println(message.getContent());

Transforming From One Format to Another

Marshal provides the TransformationBuilder which gives us some shorthand syntax for converting objects from one format to another. For example:

//message.xml contains "<Message><content>hey</content></Message>"
String json = marshal.transformFile("message.xml")
                            .ofType(Message.class)
                            .from(DataFormat.XML)
                            .to(DataFormat.JSON)
                            .getString();

// prints { "content": "hey" }
println(json);

We can even save the converted object directly to a file:

// message.xml contains <Message><content>hey</content></Message>
marshal.transformFile("message.xml")
            .ofType(Message.class)
            .from(DataFormat.XML)
            .to(DataFormat.JSON)
            .andSaveTo("message.json");
// now there's a file in the data folder named message.json with the message in it.

Building and Installing

Building

To compile the library run:

./build.sh

Installation

After running the build script we have Marshal.zip in the target folder.
Extract the zip file in the libraries folder of your processing sketchbook.

Contributing

If you want to add or fix something feel free to make an issue and pull request.

archive-for-processing/marshal