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How to convert thrift objects to readable string and convert it back?

Sometimes, we need to create some thrift objects in unit tests. We can do it by manually create object using Java code, like:
MyObj myObj = new MyObj();
myObj.setName("???");
myObj.setAge(111);
But which is not convenient. I'm looking for a way to create objects with some readable text.
We can convert thrift objects to JSON with TSimpleJSONProtocol, and get very readable JSON string, like:
{ "name": "???", "age": 111 }
But the problem is TSimpleJSONProtocol is write only, thrift can't read it back to construct an instance of MyObj.
Although there is a TJSONProtocol which supports to serialize and deserialize, but the generated JSON is not readable, it uses a very simplified JSON format and most of the field names are missing. Not convenient to construct it in tests.
Is there any way to convert thrift objects to readable string and also can convert it back? If TSimpleJSONProtocol supports converting back, which is just what I'm looking for

The main goal of Thrift is to provide efficient serialization and RPC mechanisms. What you want is something that is - at least partially - contrary to that. Human-readable data structures and machine processing efficiency are to a good extent conflicting goals, and Thrift favors the latter over the former.
You already found out about the TSimpleJson and TJson protocols and about their pros and cons, so there is not much to add. The only thing that is left to say is this: the protocol/transport stack of Thrift is simple enough.
This simplicity makes it possible to add another protocol based on your specific needs without much or overly complicated work. One could probably even write an XML protocol (if anyone really wants such bloatware) in short time.
The only caveat, especially vis-à-vis your specific case, is the fact that Thrift needs the field ID to deserialize the data. So you either need to store them in the data, or you need some other mechanism which is able to retrieve that field ID based on the field and structure names.

Map from JSON to java object with different structure

I have a JSON string representing an object, and I want to put its information into a Java object B with a different structure. Currently the solution I am taking is creating a Java Object A with a structure identical to the JSON object, made the conversion from JSON to A using Jackson and later, made the mapping from A to B using Dozer with XML mappings. Is there anyway to avoid having the A objects?
Making it short, currently I have this:
JSON--Jackson-->A--Dozer(XML mappings)-->B
and I would like to achieve this
JSON--???-->B

You may know this already, but Jackson can use loosely structure types like Map, or JsonNode as target, so you can do, say:
JsonNode root = mapper.readTree(jsonSource);
Map<String,Object> asMap = mapper.readValue(jsonSource, Map.class);
and then construct your B. Jackson has only limited amount of structural conversions (simple unwrapping), by design, although there is extensive set of scalar conversions (non-structural conversions), so if you do need structural changes it may make sense to use a library that is focused on structural changes.

Serializing objects with changing class source code

Note: Due to the lack of questions like this on SO, I've decided to put one up myself as a Q&A
Serializing objects (using an ObjectOutputStream and an ObjectInputStream) is a method for storing an instance of a Java Object as data that can be later deserialized for use. This can cause problems and frustration when the Class used to deserialize the data does not remain the same (source-code changes; program updates).
So how can an Object be serialized and deserialized with an updated / downgraded version of a Class?

Here are a few common ways of serializing an object that can be deserialized in a backwards-compatible way.
1. Store the data in the JSON format using import and export methods designed to save all fields needed to recreate the instance. This can be made backwards-compatible by including a version key that allows for an update algorithm to be called if the version is too low. A common library for this is the Google Gson library which can represent Java objects in JSON as well as normally editing a JSON file.
2. Use the built-in java Properties class in a way similar to the method described above. Properties objects can be later stored using a stream (store()) written as a regular Java Properties file, or saved in XML (storeToXML()).
3. Sometimes simple objects can be easily represented with key-value pairs in a place where storing them in a JSON, XML, or Properties file is either too complicated or not neccessary (overkill one could say). In this case, an effective way of serializing the object could be using the ObjectOutputStream class to serialize a HashMap object containing key-value pairs where the key could be a String and the value could be an Object (HashMap<String,Object>). This allows for all of the object's fields to be stored as well as including a version key while providing much versatility.
Note: Although serializing an object using the ObjectOutputStream for persistence storage is normally considered bad convention, it can be used either way as long as the class' source code remains the same.
Also Note about versioning: Changes to a class can be safely made without disrupting deserialization using an ObjectOutputStream as long as they are a compatible change. As mentioned in the Versioning of Serializable Objects chapter of the Object Serialization Specification:
A compatible change is a change that does not affect the contract
between the class and its callers.

How can I easily serialize Java graph to/from JSON?

I am struggling to find a library that will serialise a simple graph of Java objects to/from JSON (no need for circular refs or anything). I don't want to have Java class names in the output but including an extra "#type": "foo" property is fine. It must work with untyped collections and maps. I expect to have to do something like mapper.registerType(MyClass.class, "foo") to specify the type mappings but the library must take it from there. Anyone know of such a thing?

Jackson should be able to handle what it is that you are trying to do. Check out the examples from this link, most specifically #4 for polymorphic type deserialization
Jackson
Polymorphic Type Handling
Examples

Take a look at Genson it provides full databinding support, with polymorphic and untyped objects and has many other features.
// this defines aliases for classes, if you don't care of class names being
// serialized then just enabled type ser/deser using builder.setWithClassMetadata(true)
Genson genson = new Genson.Builder()
.addAlias("person", Person.class)
.addAlias("other", Some.class)
.create();
// serialize using with type information
String json = genson.serialize(object);
// deserializing to an unkown type based on the type information in the json string
genson.deserialize(json, Object.class);

Do you search something like this?
http://code.google.com/p/json-io/
json-io consists of two main classes, a reader (JsonReader) and a
writer (JsonWriter). There is a 3rd rigorous test class
(TestJsonReaderWriter). json-io eliminates the need for using
ObjectInputStream / ObjectOutputStream to serialize Java and instead
uses the JSON format.
...
Usage
json-io can be used directly on JSON Strings or with Java's Streams.

Using reflection to set property values where types are unknown

I am using reflection to set value object properties at runtime. If everything were a string, I may not be asking this question, but that's not the case. I have a web service that returns json and I want to use the json returned by the service to populate the object. I have an ArrayList of strings called alphabeticalKeys that contains sorted keys in the json string. Here is the code I am using to dynamically populate the object (user):
for(String fieldName : alphabeticalKeys){
Log.d("JSON:" + fieldName, json.getString(fieldName));
Field f = userClass.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
f.setAccessible(true);
f.set(user, jsonObject.get(fieldName));
}
In the json data set, there are strings, doubles and more. This is part of a factory class where the type of object being returned is unknown at compile time. Also, the json fields' data types may vary depending on the type of object needed.
The json output matches the field names in the returned object, so I am looking for a way to handle the different data types returned in the json output. Can somebody offer up a suggestion?
Thx! Vivian

There are libraries available to aid in setting property values using reflection, converting to the appropriate type if necessary. For example, Spring Framework's BeanWrapper and Apache Commons BeanUtils.
There are also json libraries that will handle mapping json to/from java objects. For example, Gson and Jackson. This may make it easier, especially if the json structure closely matches the java object structure.