Serialize a Java object to Java code?

Question

Is there an implementation that will serialize a Java object as Java code? For example, if I have the object

Map<String,Integer> m = new Map<String,Integer>();
m.put("foo",new Integer(21));

I could serialize this using

ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream( ... );
out.writeObject( m );
out.flush();

and the output would, for example, be

java.util.Map<String,Integer> m = new java.util.Map<String,Integer>(); 
m.put("foo",new Integer(21));

Why would you want this? Sometimes it is easier to partially create complex objects programmatically and then complete the creation manually in code. This code can then be included in the source and version controlled with everything else. Note that using external serialized objects is not exceptable.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Answer 1

I implemented this functionality in a new github project. You can find the project here:

https://github.com/ManuelB/java-bean-to-code-serializer

The project does not have any external dependencies except junit.

Currently it is not supporting arrays for serialization yet. Nevertheless there is already a lot of functionalities:

        Object2CodeObjectOutputStream object2CodeObjectOutputStream = new Object2CodeObjectOutputStream(
            byteArrayOutputStream);
        object2CodeObjectOutputStream.writeObject(<your-java-bean>);
        System.out.println(
                byteArrayOutputStream.toString());