I need to dump all the attributes of a Java object. I have found a few functions that do this but none of them handle self references and all of the functions I have found spiral into infinite recursion.
//I will be running this function on Android but that shouldn't really matter.
If this is just for debugging or if you want some form of basic serialization take a peek at XStream . Here is an example from their site talking about self references in particular...
Cd bj = new Cd("basement_jaxx_singles");
List order = new ArrayList();
// adds the same cd twice (two references to the same object)
order.add(bj);
order.add(bj);
// adds itself (cycle)
order.add(order);
XStream xstream = new XStream();
xstream.alias("cd", Cd.class);
System.out.println(xstream.toXML(order));
And the output is...
<list>
<cd>
<id>maria rita</id>
</cd>
<cd>
<id>basement_jaxx_singles</id>
</cd>
<cd reference="../cd[2]"/>
<list reference=".."/>
</list>
