Creates a domain (hibernate) object from a matching form object.

ConvertSpringForm.java

import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * Creates a domain object from a matching form object.
 
 * Spring parses JSON response into a form, where the 
 * data from the form can first be validated. Then, the 
 * properties of the form can be assigned to a Hibernate 
 * object, which a dao can use to save/update the database. 
 *
 * This eliminates the need to manually assign many fields 
 * to a domain object each time this process needs to happen. 
 */
public class ConvertForm {

    /**
     * Creates an instance of the requested object from a domain form
     * @param form the web form to be converted
     * @return corresponding domain object to be created
     */
    public static Object createObject(Object object, Object form) {

        List<Field> fields = new ArrayList<>();
        fields = getAllFields(fields, object.getClass());

        for (Field objectField : fields) {

            try {

                //get the form field and its value
                Field formField = form.getClass().getDeclaredField(objectField.getName());
                formField.setAccessible(true);
                Object value = formField.get(form);

                objectField.setAccessible(true);
                objectField.set(object, value);

                formField.setAccessible(false);
                objectField.setAccessible(false);

            } catch (NoSuchFieldException | IllegalAccessException e) {
                //do nothing, it's fine if the field doesn't exist
            }

        }

        return object;
    }


    /**
     * Recursively checks parent object to get any inherited properties. 
     */
    private static List<Field> getAllFields(List<Field> fields, Class<?> type) {

        fields.addAll(Arrays.asList(type.getDeclaredFields()));

        if(type.getSuperclass() != null) {
            fields = getAllFields(fields, type.getSuperclass());
        }

        return fields;
    }
}