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1

I have a collection of serialized components in JSON format:

{
    "components": [{
        "class": "com.package.component.PositionComponent",
        "x": 100,
        "y": 100
    }, {
        "class": "com.package.component.VelocityComponent",
        "x": 4,
        "y": 2
    }]
}

I want to load this into a collection of base Components in Java, specifically into an Entity. I am currently using YAML (parsed using SnakeYAML) to achieve this. The following file (which is virtually identical to the JSON one) is parsed and the components are stored in an ArrayList:

components:
- ==: com.package.component.PositionComponent
  x: 100
  y: 100
- ==: com.package.component.VelocityComponent
  x: 4
  y: 2

Is there any way I can achieve this using the JSON parsing facilities provided by LibGDX? I am currently using the following code to parse the components, but I have no idea how to get it to construct the correct appropriate object for each component:

JsonReader reader = new JsonReader();
JsonValue base = reader.parse("components.json");

for (JsonValue component : base.get("components")) {
    System.out.println(component.getString("class"));
}
share|improve this question
    
Is there a reason you cannot use a map/dictionary from component name to a function/delegate/etc that creates the desired type of component (basically a factory? – Josh Petrie♦ Aug 2 at 19:52
    
I'm more or less wondering if there is an equivalent to SnakeYAML's method of doing this. – Beautiful Chaos Aug 2 at 19:53
up vote 0 down vote

So are you asking how to create a class given a class type as a string?

JsonReader reader = new JsonReader();
JsonValue base = reader.parse("components.json");

for (JsonValue component : base.get("components")) {
    Class<?> clazz = Class.forName(component.getString("class"));
    Constructor<?> ctor = clazz.getConstructor();
    Object object = ctor.newInstance();
}

Though I assume you probably have no arg consructors, if you need to pass arguments to a constructor, it is done like this (if the argument was a String):

Class<?> clazz = Class.forName(className);
Constructor<?> ctor = clazz.getConstructor(String.class);
Object object = ctor.newInstance(new Object[] { ctorArgument });
share|improve this answer
    
Which is appropriate for deserializing JSON into known objects. It won't work, however, if I want to deserialize an array of components to be stored in a collection such as ArrayList<? extends Component>, such that I don't know the exact type of component I am deserializing. – Beautiful Chaos Aug 3 at 1:00
    
My bad. I updated my answer with attempt #2 – spectacularbob Aug 3 at 16:23

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