The Convertor API allows to convertor object to namespace aware XML fragment and vice versa.

API Overview

The API part is quite straightforward. There is one main class with couple of static helper methods working on all registered convertors in the system.

Learn by example

The typical workflow of storing and loading of an object is illustrated below. It expect that there is registered convertor for the object which does the actual conversion. For how to write a convertor see SPI package overview.

1.) test whether there is a convertor for the object

    boolean canWrite = Convertors.canWrite(anObject);

2.) if yes then save it to a file

    OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream("somefilename.xml");
    try {
         Convertors.write(os, anObject);
    } finally {
        os.close();
    }
That's all for writing. The reading is adequately simple:

    InputStream is = new FileInputStream("somefilename.xml");
    try {
        theObject = Convertors.read(is);
    } catch (SAXException ex) {
        // file is not valid XML document.
        // notify user and/or ignore file.
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        // file cannot be read or there is no convertor for root element
        // notify user and/or ignore file.
    } finally {
        is.close();
    }