Properties is a class that helps you save and load a class's properties to and from XML files in an easy way. Since it uses reflection, you don't have to worry about type casting.
Consider a class like the following:
public class User {
private int id;
private String name = "";
public int getId() { return id; }
public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; }
public String getName() { return name; }
public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; }
}
To persist this class into an XML file, just create an instance of Properties and specify the file name you want to use:
Properties<User> pm = new Properties<>("user.xml");
To save an instance, call the save() method:
User user = new User();
user.setId(1);
user.setName("Yoyo");
pm.save(user); // save an instance of class User
To load an instance, call the load() method:
User user = pm.load(new User()); // load it from a file
System.out.println(user.getName());
The class supports the following types: boolean, Boolean, byte,
Byte, Date, double, Double, float, Float, int, Integer, long,
Long, short, Short and String.
In order to save or load, it goes through all getters and setters when saving and loading. If a getter with a non-supported type is found, then it will be stored into the file, but will not be retrieved.