HI,
While needing to add more diagnostic messages to debug skinning issues, we needed quite a few toString() implementations
that needed these common aspects:
1. Add information about the class - class name and identity hash code
2. Add the rudimentary field-value state from the objects of the class
3. Formatting needed to make the string representations uniform.
Proposal is to add a utility class (API) "ToStringHelper" that takes care of this requirement. Please review the API and
discuss here if you have comments.
API proposal:
==========
package org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.util;
/**
* Helper class to build strings for diagnostic log messages, and in toString()
implementations.
* This helper class takes care of few niceties' like:
* 1. Adding the identity (classname and hashcode) of an object
* 2. Adding fields and values of an object
* 3. Formatting in string in JSON style
* 4. Adopts a builder pattern, hence easy to use
*
*/
public final class ToStringHelper
{
/**
* Zero arg constructor
*/
public ToStringHelper()
/**
* Constructor that takes in the object whose information is to be added to
the string
* @param object The object whose classname and hashcode is to be included in
the string
*/
public ToStringHelper(Object object);
/**
* Appends the field name and value (as returned by 'toString()' of the
supplied value object),
* formatting it in JSON style
* @param fieldName The name of the field to append
* @param value The value object of the field to append
* @return The helper object after appending
*/
public ToStringHelper append(String fieldName, Object value);
}
Thanks,
Prakash
