Convert a Map<String, String> to a POJO

Question

Well, you can achieve that with Jackson, too. (and it seems to be more comfortable since you were considering using jackson).

Use ObjectMapper's convertValue method:

final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); // jackson's objectmapper
final MyPojo pojo = mapper.convertValue(map, MyPojo.class);

No need to convert into JSON string or something else; direct conversion does much faster.

A solution with Gson:

Gson gson = new Gson();
JsonElement jsonElement = gson.toJsonTree(map);
MyPojo pojo = gson.fromJson(jsonElement, MyPojo.class);

if you have generic types in your class you should use TypeReference with convertValue().

final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final MyPojo<MyGenericType> pojo = mapper.convertValue(map, new TypeReference<MyPojo<MyGenericType>>() {});

Also you can use that to convert a pojo to java.util.Map back.

final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final Map<String, Object> map = mapper.convertValue(pojo, new TypeReference<Map<String, Object>>() {});

Yes, its definitely possible to avoid the intermediate conversion to JSON. Using a deep-copy tool like Dozer you can convert the map directly to a POJO. Here is a simplistic example:

Example POJO:

public class MyPojo implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    private String id;
    private String name;
    private Integer age;
    private Double savings;

    public MyPojo() {
        super();
    }

    // Getters/setters

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return String.format(
                "MyPojo[id = %s, name = %s, age = %s, savings = %s]", getId(),
                getName(), getAge(), getSavings());
    }
}

Sample conversion code:

public class CopyTest {
    @Test
    public void testCopyMapToPOJO() throws Exception {
        final Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(4);
        map.put("id", "5");
        map.put("name", "Bob");
        map.put("age", "23");
        map.put("savings", "2500.39");
        map.put("extra", "foo");

        final DozerBeanMapper mapper = new DozerBeanMapper();
        final MyPojo pojo = mapper.map(map, MyPojo.class);
        System.out.println(pojo);
    }
}

Output:

MyPojo[id = 5, name = Bob, age = 23, savings = 2500.39]

Note: If you change your source map to a Map<String, Object> then you can copy over arbitrarily deep nested properties (with Map<String, String> you only get one level).

I have tested both Jackson and BeanUtils and found out that BeanUtils is much faster.
In my machine(Windows8.1 , JDK1.7) I got this result.

BeanUtils t2-t1 = 286
Jackson t2-t1 = 2203

public class MainMapToPOJO {

public static final int LOOP_MAX_COUNT = 1000;

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
    map.put("success", true);
    map.put("data", "testString");

    runBeanUtilsPopulate(map);

    runJacksonMapper(map);
}

private static void runBeanUtilsPopulate(Map<String, Object> map) {
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
        try {
            TestClass bean = new TestClass();
            BeanUtils.populate(bean, map);
        } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("BeanUtils t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
}

private static void runJacksonMapper(Map<String, Object> map) {
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP_MAX_COUNT; i++) {
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        TestClass testClass = mapper.convertValue(map, TestClass.class);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("Jackson t2-t1 = " + String.valueOf(t2 - t1));
}}