library for dumping object content via reflection

denis.tsyplakov · **library for dumping object content via reflection -** 08-25-2008, 06:52 AM

jbeandumer - Google Code

Small library that dumps Java object state into human readable format (similar, but not exact, to JavaFX literal). For example:

Code:

Dumper dmpr = new Dumper();
System.out.println(dmpr.dump(new Date()));

prints:

Code:

java.util.Date{
   cdate : null
   fastTime : 1218288272098
}

Another example:

Code:

Dumper dmpr = new Dumper();
dmpr.setRadix(16); //You could use radix up to Character.MAX_RADIX, 31 for example :-)
dmpr.setIDENT("\t");
System.out.println(dmpr.dump(new ByteArrayInputStream("123456789".getBytes())));

prints:

Code:

java.io.ByteArrayInputStream{
	buf : [ // byte[9]
		31h, 32h, 33h, 34h, 35h, 36h, 37h, 38h, 
		39h
	]
	count : 9h
	mark : 0h
	pos : 0h
}

Current status: v 1.3 seems to be production ready, at least I use in my project.

matt · 08-27-2008, 09:54 PM

Pretty neat. It can be a real pain in the rear to see a nicely formatted view in the console of your object state. What have you been using it for? I suppose its very helpful if you can't attach a debugger to your code.

denis.tsyplakov · 08-28-2008, 06:13 AM

It is very useful for error diagnostics. For example: some example occurred while executing middleware request (request is an object). If I could automatically dump request, responce, session state to separate files (+all previuos session requests), zip it and attach to JIRA issue it is really helpful.

Not all bugs fires when debugger is attached. Sometimes it happens in production on the other side of the Earth, 12 hours ago.

But anyway you need to catch this irregular bug and fix it.