BlazeDS - Conversion from ArrayList <BaseClass> on java side to Actionscript

Question

Hi,

So we have a java class with two ArrayLists of generics. It looks like

public class Blah
{
   public ArrayList<ConcreteClass> a;
   public ArrayList<BaseClass> b;
}

by using [ArrayElementType('ConcreteClass')] in the actionscript class, we are able to get all the "a"s converted fine. However with "b", since the actual class coming across the line is a heterogeneous mix of classes like BaseClassImplementation1, BaseClassImplementation2 etc, it gets typed as an object. Is there a way to convert it to the specific concrete class assuming that a strongly typed AS version of the java class exists on the client side

thanks for your help! Regis

Answer 1

To ensure that all of your DTO classes are marshalled across AS and Java, you need to define each remote class as a "remote class" in AS by using the "RemoteClass" attribute pointing to the java class definition like this [RemoteClass(alias="com.myco.class")].

BlazeDS will perform introspection on the class as it is being serialized/de-serialized and convert it appropriately (see doc below). It doesn't matter how the classes are packed or nested in an array, as long as it can be introspected it should work.

If you need special serialization for a class you can create your own serialization proxys (called beanproxy) by extending "AbastractProxy" and loading them into blazeds using the PropertyProxyRegistry register method on startup.

You will find most of this in the Blaze developers guide http://livedocs.adobe.com/blazeds/1/blazeds_devguide/.

Creating your own beanproxy class look here: //livedocs.adobe.com/blazeds/1/javadoc/flex/messaging/io/BeanProxy.html