Package net.sf.mmm.util.pojo.api

Provides the API for dealing with Pojos.

See: Description

Interface Summary

Interface	Description
Pojo	This interface is only used for documentation of what is meant by the term POJO: A POJO is a shortcut for Plain Old Java Object and simply means any Java object containing or providing data.
PojoFactory	This is the interface for a generic factory used to create new instances of Pojos.
PojoUtil	This is the interface for a collection of utility functions to deal with POJOs.

Package net.sf.mmm.util.pojo.api Description

Provides the API for dealing with Pojos.

POJO API

POJO is a shortcut for Plain Old Java Object and more or less means any java object. While the java beans specification is generally a good idea to follow, it is sometimes too restrictive. E.g. you might want to name a boolean getter with the prefix "has" or want to have a primitive type as setter argument while the getter has the according object type. Using this utilities you are NOT limited by such restrictions.
Further the generic type-system introduced with Java 5 is quite complex and NOT properly supported by existing bean-utilities (see GenericType for further details).
Instead of the Introspector for java-beans or commons-beanutils, you can use the advanced introspection offered by PojoDescriptorBuilder.
Further there is support to traverse a complete object-web spanned by an initial Pojo based on a PojoPath (similar to XPath for XML) using the PojoPathNavigator.
A simple way to create new instances of Pojos is offered by the PojoFactory.