From what I understand, the property descriptor really handles the straight invocation of a bean property, not getting a hold of a collection and using it. For example, the IndexedPropertyDescriptor won't get back the Object[] and then get the object from the index, it only takes the "Object getMyProperty(index)" style property methods.
If you look at the indexed part of PropertyUtils, handling the Object[] is the special case outside of the descriptor. Through this we're also getting an item from a java.util.List implementation. Similar to all that is the MappedPropertyDescriptor. PropertyUtils/BeanUtils was apparently meant to be an implementation of the Bean spec (though I don't see mapped properties in the bean spec :), and to carry it out seems that these collection type uses need to be manually handled. Use PropertyUtils and you'll get at your Lists. Arron. Stephen Colebourne wrote: >I've just spent the evening trying to figure out the property descriptor >classes myself. For the joda project I wanted to return a BeanInfo >specifying a description of the bean. But it seems to be a bit tricky. > >PropertyDescriptor is OK for my needs (just about) >IndexedPropertyDesciptor is not much use as it only covers arrays, not Lists >MappedPropertyDescriptor seems to be of limited use. It is picked up from >BeanInfo, but does not include the Map getXxxMap() type method as Arron >noted. > >Nothing really handles Lists, and I also noted that DynaBeans don't use >PropertyDescriptors. > >One solution would be for beanutils to have a ListPropertyDescriptor that >copes with getXxxList() and getXxx(int). Plus extending >MappedPropertyDescriptor to cover getXxxMap(). > >This all seems hard work however. The beans spec is pretty outdated these >days (thats why I started joda really). My question is whether these >extended (ie. java.beans) PropertyDescriptor classes really are that >useful - can they really be used as general purpose classes without writing >a full replacement to java.beans.Introspector? > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
