Best practices for Lists and Maps

[Naresh Bhatia <NB...@sapient.com>]

Hi,

I am trying to find the best practices around serializing /
deserializing Lists and Maps. So far I have come up with the following
approaches. Please feel free to give me your comments as well as list
other approaches that you may have found useful. My overall assumption
is that it is heck of a lot easier to work with Lists and Maps inside a
Java application rather than arrays, which is the preferred way for
SOAP!

1) Maintain separate internal data structures for Java and external data
structures for SOAP. Translate between the two as needed. For example:

    public Book {
        private String isdn; // key
        ...
    }

    public BookStoreInternal {
        private HashMap books;  // key is isdn, value is Book
        ...
    }

    public BookStoreSoap {
        private Book[] books;
        ...
    }

    Advantages: Interoperable with other SOAP toolkits
    Disadvantages: Ugly to maintain two sets of data structures and
conversion routines

2) Keep just one set of data structures, use Lists and Maps as needed.
Write custom serializers and deserializers to translates the lists and
maps to SOAP arrays and vice versa.

    Advantages: Interoperable with other SOAP toolkits
    Disadvantages: Ugly to maintain custom serializers and deserializers

3) Use the Axis framework to serialize / deserialize Lists and Maps

    Advantages: No maintenance
    Disadvantages: Not interoperable with other toolkits (I know Maps
don't work with .NET)

What would be ideal is if I can use Lists and Maps as I feel like and
Axis would automatically translate them to / from SOAP arrays. I don't
mind giving hints to Axis about object types / keys - but this approach
would be far more easier to implement and maintain that any of the three
mentioned above. Comments?

Thanks.
Naresh

Re: Best practices for Lists and Maps

[Jess Sightler <js...@eximtechnologies.com>]

Hi Naresh,

I tend to prefer the first approach.  And the Java APIs can make it
fairly easy:

Eg:

public List getBooks () {
	return books;
}
public Book[] getBookArray () {
	return (Book[])gooks.toArray(new Book[0]);
}

I'd also add that many of these will get much easier once Java adds
support for real Generics.


On Tue, 2003-02-18 at 11:11, Naresh Bhatia wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to find the best practices around serializing /
> deserializing Lists and Maps. So far I have come up with the following
> approaches. Please feel free to give me your comments as well as list
> other approaches that you may have found useful. My overall assumption
> is that it is heck of a lot easier to work with Lists and Maps inside
> a Java application rather than arrays, which is the preferred way for
> SOAP!
> 
> 1) Maintain separate internal data structures for Java and external
> data structures for SOAP. Translate between the two as needed. For
> example:
> 
>     public Book {
>         private String isdn; // key
>         ...
>     }
> 
>     public BookStoreInternal {
>         private HashMap books;  // key is isdn, value is Book
>         ...
>     }
> 
>     public BookStoreSoap {
>         private Book[] books;
>         ...
>     }
> 
>     Advantages: Interoperable with other SOAP toolkits
>     Disadvantages: Ugly to maintain two sets of data structures and
> conversion routines
> 
> 2) Keep just one set of data structures, use Lists and Maps as needed.
> Write custom serializers and deserializers to translates the lists and
> maps to SOAP arrays and vice versa.
> 
>     Advantages: Interoperable with other SOAP toolkits
>     Disadvantages: Ugly to maintain custom serializers and
> deserializers
> 
> 3) Use the Axis framework to serialize / deserialize Lists and Maps
> 
>     Advantages: No maintenance
>     Disadvantages: Not interoperable with other toolkits (I know Maps
> don't work with .NET)
> 
> What would be ideal is if I can use Lists and Maps as I feel like and
> Axis would automatically translate them to / from SOAP arrays. I don't
> mind giving hints to Axis about object types / keys - but this
> approach would be far more easier to implement and maintain that any
> of the three mentioned above. Comments?
> 
> Thanks.
> Naresh
-- 
=======================================
Jess Sightler
Senior Developer
Exim Technologies
131 Falls Street
Greenville SC 29601
Phone: 864-679-4651
=======================================