Jakarta Commons Cookbook

3.4. Accessing Simple Bean Properties

Problem

You need to access a simple bean property by name.

Solution

Use PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty() to access a bean property by name; this method takes the name of a property and returns the value of that property. The following example uses this method to retrieve the name property from a Person bean:

import org.apache.commons.beanutils.PropertyUtils;

Person person = new Person( );
person.setName( "Alex" );    

String name = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty( person, "name" );
System.out.println( name );

PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty( ) invokes the public method getName( ) on an instance of Person, returning the value of the name property. The previous example executes and prints out the name “Alex.”

Discussion

A simple bean property is a private member variable that can be accessed with a getter method. If a property can be read via a getter method, that getter method is said to be the read method for the named property. If the property can be modified with a setter method, that setter method is said to be the write method for the named property. The Person bean in Example 3-4 defines two simple bean properties, name and favoriteColor.

Example 3-4. A Person bean with two simple properties

package com.discursive.jccook.bean; public class Person { private String name; private String favoriteColor; public Person( ) {} public String getName( ) { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public String getFavoriteColor( ...