Java Object to Object Mapper

Orest IvasivOctober 7th, 2013Last Updated: October 6th, 2013

18 659 3 minutes read

I’ve been using Dozer some time on the project. But, recently I have got very interesting error which motivates me to look around and try to use other Object to Object mapper.

Here is the list of tools I’ve found:

Dozer: Dozer is a Java Bean to Java Bean mapper that recursively copies data from one object to another. Typically, these Java Beans will be of different complex types.
Orika: Orika is a Java Bean mapping framework that recursively copies (among other capabilities) data from one object to another. It can be very useful when developing multi-layered applications.
Transmorph: Transmorph is a free java library used to convert a Java object of one type into an object of another type (with another signature, possibly parameterized).
EZMorph: EZMorph is simple java library for transforming an Object to another Object. It supports transformations for primitives and Objects, for multidimensional arrays and transformations with DynaBeans
Commons-BeanUtils: ConvertUtils -> Utility methods for converting String scalar values to objects of the specified Class, String arrays to arrays of the specified Class.
Commons-Lang: ArrayUtils -> Operations on arrays, primitive arrays (like int[]) and primitive wrapper arrays (like Integer[]).
Commons-Convert: Commons-Convert aims to provide a single library dedicated to the task of converting an object of one type to another. The first stage will focus on Object to String and String to Object conversions.
Morph: Morph is a Java framework that eases the internal interoperability of an application. As information flows through an application, it undergoes multiple transformations. Morph provides a standard way to implement these transformations.
Lorentz: Lorentz is a generic object-to-object conversion framework. It provides a simple API to convert a Java objects of one type into an object of another type.
(seems dead)
Spring framework: Spring has an excellent support for PropertyEditors, that can also be used to transform Objects to/from Strings.
ModelMapper: ModelMapper is an intelligent object mapping framework that automatically maps objects to each other. It uses a convention based approach to map objects while providing a simple refactoring safe API for handling specific use cases.
OTOM: With OTOM, you can copy any data from any object to any other object. The possibilities are endless. Welcome to “Autumn”.
Smooks: The Smooks JavaBean Cartridge allows you to create and populate Java objects from your message data (i.e. bind data to).
Nomin: Nomin is a mapping engine for the Java platform transforming object trees according to declarative mapping rules. This Java mapping framework aims to reduce efforts when it’s needed to map different structures to each other.
Modelbridge: Modelbridge is an Eclipse plugin that lets you copy data between Java objects.
omapper: This project aims at providing a simple library to ease the process of mapping objects or beans from one design layer to another design layer, using annotations. One can specify mappings both in source class (Sink Annotation) and target class(Source Annotation). Supports mapping composed user class objects and array fields.
Moo: Moo maps an object or graph of objects to another object or set of objects while trying to stay as unintrusive as possible and easy-to-use. Moo makes it possible to create quick copies and data transfer objects.
OpenL Tablets: treats tables in Excel and Word files as a source of application logic. This approach may be unusual, but it has it’s own unique advantages, in particular it allows to close the gap between business world and IT world.
JMapper: JMapper Framework is a java bean to java bean mapper, allows you to perform the passage of data dynamically with annotations and / or XML.

Resources

Reference: Java Object to Object Mapper from our JCG partner Orest Ivasiv at the Knowledge Is Everything blog.

Orest IvasivOctober 7th, 2013Last Updated: October 6th, 2013

18 659 3 minutes read

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Gunnar

11 years ago

Hi,

Another alternative is MapStruct (http://mapstruct.org/, disclaimer: I’m the author if this project). It provides an approach for creating fast and type-safe bean mappers using compile-time code generation. Any feedback is highly welcome.

–Gunnar

Mark Holcroft

6 years ago

Reply to Gunnar

I’ve evaluated a few mapping approaches. MapStruct is nearly as fast as hand-written code but with far less effort.

For 1,000,000 mappings:-

Dozer: 11.142seconds
Hand Written Builder: 1.348 seconds
Setters and Getters: 0.204 seconds
Map Struct: 0.246 seconds
ModelMapper: 3.467 seconds
Orika: 1.802 seconds
BeanCp: 1.314 seconds

Jeff

10 years ago

Great article. Entered all of the above object mappers into a spreadsheet with links and other info to help determine which projects are active.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak1qn7j985vrdHR2cXVEWkVXZ0lWVVdyZi1TZUpqbGc&usp=sharing

Séven

I would like to share my own solution Selma http://xebia-france.github.io/selma/. This is project I made using Annotation Processor as Gunnar did, but with few differences. The mapping code is generated at compile time so you have better performance, compiler feedback, and it is refactoring proof.

Give it a try and tell me.

Jonathan Peffer

9 years ago

Reply to Séven

Loving Selma so far, glad I ran across this post. So much cleaner than most of the projects mentioned in this article.

-1

Mike

7 years ago

Séven,

I’m looking for a framework that will handle mapping between two different objects. Right now we are using Orika to handle this functionality. Unfortunately, the objects we map to have “validation code” written into their setters so if certain fields are null or are too long, an exception gets thrown which does not get handled by framework and a RuntimeException gets thrown. These exceptions are defined in the setter method definition. Does your framework handle such an issue?

Thanks,
Mike

Rafal

For Java version 8 based projects I would like to recommend my project: bean-cp. It relies on lambda expressions and fluent API. Bean-cp also support mapping conventions, to speed-up development. See http://erchu.github.io/bean-cp/ project home page for more details.

Best regards,
Rafal

RaJ

Dozer frame work was integrated in my project and would like to switch from Dozer due to performance issues as reflections based frame work.So please suggest a frame work which could work as faster as hand-coded and not reflections based.

Thanks,
Raj

RaJ, MapStruct may be exactly what you are after (disclaimer: I’m the author of this project). It generates mapping code at compile time, based on Java interface definitions. The generated code uses plain getter/setter calls and generally looks as if you had written it by hand. It doesn’t use reflection, byte code generation at runtime or similar, and the generated code is fully self-contained, i.e. there is no dependency of any sort. The code generator works on the command line (e.g. within Maven or Ant) as well as your IDE (e.g. Eclipse, IntelliJ, NetBeans) and gives you fast and helpful… Read more »

Gunnar,

Thanks for your response and also confirm, is it open source or not?

Raj, yes, MapStruct is open source (ASF v2 license).

Hth,

Juri

I do a lot of .Net programming and there “we” have AutoMapper. ModelMapper is somehow a port of it (as far as I’ve understood). Did anyone give it a try and likes to share some experience reports??

I seem to understand that Dozer is the most popular one among the Java community, however I don’t really like the XML configuration approach as it is not refactoring safe. That’s why I like the convention and code-based configuration approach taken by ModelMapper.

I just updated my spreadsheet with the latest release information for all the libraries mentioned in this article (including the comments).

JeeGuy

Very many thanks for this great collection – may i ask which kind of issues you experienced with Dozer and if you found a new favorite to “replace” it?