Java Data binding best practices

Question

Even if I'm not new to Java, I've only used it in school/university environment so I don't know all the best practices used in the enterprise.

In particular I'm now developing a Java desktop application (using Swing at the UI Layer) and I'm particularly interested in best practices about data binding with swing components.

For example I could have a List of model objects at the model layer and I need to show them in a JTable. Then, when a single row of the JTable is selected, I need to display some information regarding the model object corresponding to the selected row on some JLabels.

What libraries should I use? What are the best practices to do so?

I'm looking for some links/articles/tutorials(/books?) to dive into this topic and to learn about pros and cons of the various solutions.

Answer 1

For the specific example you give I would recommend the following approach:

1. Represent your model objects as a List<Model> where the List implementation supports RandomAccess (e.g. an ArrayList).
2. Subclass AbstractTableModel and override getValueAt(int row, int col) to index into your List<Model> and retrieve the appropriate Model instance. Then return the particular attribute you wish to bind to column: col.

In general I roll my own when it comes to data binding rather than use a framework. For editor-style panels I typically implement three methods: initialise(), commit() and clear(), whereby initialise takes an instance of the domain object being edited, commit applies any changes and returns a modified instance of the domain object, and clear clears all UI component values or sets them back to default values.