How to get an XML string from a Java Bean without wrting to a file first ?

Question

I know we can save a Java Bean to an XML file with XMLEncoder and then read it back with XMLDecoder.
But how can I get an XML string of a Java Bean without writing to a file first ?
For instance :
My_Class A_Class = new My_Class("a",1,2,"Z", ...);
String XML_String_Of_The_Class = an XML representation of A_Class ?
Of course I can save it to a file with XMLEncoder, and read it in using XMLDecoder, then delete the file, I wonder if it is possible to skip all that and get the XML string directly ?
Frank

Answer 1

I think so too, but I am trying to send the object to a servlet as shown below, since I don't know how to send an object to a servlet, I can only turn it into a string and reconstruct it back to an object on the server side after receiving it :
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;
class Servlet_Message        // Send a message to an HTTP servlet. The protocol is a GET or POST request with a URLEncoded string holding the arguments sent as name=value pairs.
  public static int GET=0;
  public static int POST=1;
  private URL servlet;
  // the URL of the servlet to send messages to
  public Servlet_Message(URL servlet) { this.servlet=servlet; }
  public String sendMessage(Properties args) throws IOException { return sendMessage(args,POST); }
  // Send the request. Return the input stream with the response if the request succeeds.
  // @param args the arguments to send to the servlet
  // @param method GET or POST
  // @exception IOException if error sending request
  // @return the response from the servlet to this message
  public String sendMessage(Properties args,int method) throws IOException
    String Input_Line;
    StringBuffer Result_Buf=new StringBuffer();
    // Set this up any way you want -- POST can be used for all calls, but request headers
    // cannot be set in JDK 1.0.2 so the query string still must be used to pass arguments.
    if (method==GET)
      URL url=new URL(servlet.toExternalForm()+"?"+toEncodedString(args));
      BufferedReader in=new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream()));
      while ((Input_Line=in.readLine()) != null) Result_Buf.append(Input_Line+"\n");
    else     
      URLConnection conn=servlet.openConnection();
      conn.setDoInput(true);
      conn.setDoOutput(true);           
      conn.setUseCaches(false);
      // Work around a Netscape bug
      conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
      // POST the request data (html form encoded)
      DataOutputStream out=new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream());
      if (args!=null && args.size()>0)
        out.writeBytes(toEncodedString(args));
//        System.out.println("ServletMessage args: "+args);
//        System.out.println("ServletMessage toEncString args: "+toEncodedString(args));     
      BufferedReader in=new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
      while ((Input_Line=in.readLine()) != null) Result_Buf.append(Input_Line+"\n");
      out.flush();
      out.close(); // ESSENTIAL for this to work!          
    return Result_Buf.toString();               // Read the POST response data   
  // Encode the arguments in the property set as a URL-encoded string. Multiple name=value pairs are separated by ampersands.
  // @return the URLEncoded string with name=value pairs
  public String toEncodedString(Properties args)
    StringBuffer sb=new StringBuffer();
    if (args!=null)
      String sep="";
      Enumeration names=args.propertyNames();
      while (names.hasMoreElements())
        String name=(String)names.nextElement();
        try { sb.append(sep+URLEncoder.encode(name,"UTF-8")+"="+URLEncoder.encode(args.getProperty(name),"UTF-8")); }
//        try { sb.append(sep+URLEncoder.encode(name,"UTF-16")+"="+URLEncoder.encode(args.getProperty(name),"UTF-16")); }
        catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { System.out.println(e); }
        sep="&";
    return sb.toString();
}As shown above the servlet need to encode a string.
Now my question becomes :
<1> Is it possible to send an object to a servlet, if so how ? And at the receiving end how to get it back to an object ?
<2> If it can't be done, how can I be sure to encode the string in the right format to send it over to the servlet ?
Frank