Can I print an objects fields' values in a loop without having to cast?

Question

Hi,
I have a Class with about 30 (public)fields and I need to print the values of each of them to a file. I tried the getFields() method of the Class object, but couldn't get the desired result, especially that the documentation says no order is guaranteed when using this method and I need to know have one in order to be able to read from the file when reconstriucting the object.
I considered using the Object Streams but I need it to be in human readable format, preferably ASCII, as the fields are int, long, String, Date...
Also the object might grow so I don't want to hardcode the writing and reading methods, would like it to be as generic as possible.
Thanks for help

Answer 1

hallo,
have you tried XMLEncoder ; something like this (from the API docs):
XMLEncoder e = new XMLEncoder(
new BufferedOutputStream(
new FileOutputStream("Test.xml")));
e.writeObject(new JButton("Hello, world"));
e.close();
you can customize which parts of the objects are written, i think. otherwise, just create bean-like setter and getter methods for the fields and they should be automatically written (and read with XMLDecoder).
ciao, -sciss-