Java: Getting the properties of a class to constru

Question

Let's say I have a class like this (and also further assume that all the private variables:

public class Item {
    private String _id = null;
    private String _name = null;
    private String _description = null;

        ...
}

Now, if I want to build a toString() representation of this class, I would do something like this inside the Item class:

@Override
public String toString() {
    return (_id + " " + _name + " " + _description);
}

But what if I have say 15 private variables inside the class? Do I have to write the name of each and every variable like this?

Ideally, I would like to get over with the task by iterating through the list of private variables of this class and construct the string representation:

@Override
public String toString() {
    ArrayList<String> members = getClass().getMembers(); //Some method like this
    String string = "";
    for(...)
        string += members[i] + " ";
}

Or perhaps a toJSON method, I would still need access to the names of these variables. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Check this API org.apache.commons.lang.builder.ToStringBuilder, it provides multiple ways to create toString usinf reflection or without reflection. Take a look at other subclasses as well.