Handlers.md

Concept

A Handler is an implementation of the PibifyGenerated<T> abstract class. It primarily has 2 methods

public abstract T deserialize(IDeserializer deserializer, Class<T> type, SerializationContext context)
        throws PibifyCodeExecException;

public abstract void serialize(T object, ISerializer serializer, SerializationContext context)
        throws PibifyCodeExecException;

The Pibify Maven plugin generates a concrete implementation of this abstract class.

For every class in the maven module annotated with @Pibify, a handler is generated. The handler is named as <ClassName>Handler.

Out of the Box Handlers

Few handlers are provided out of the box. They are:

1. PibifyObjectHandler - for cases where the reference type is java.lang.Object
2. PibifyMapHandler - for cases where the reference type is java.util.Map with missing type parameters
3. PibifyCollectionHandler - for cases where the reference type is java.util.Collection with missing type parameters
4. BigDecimalHandler - for cases where the reference type is java.math.BigDecimal
5. DateHandler - for cases where the reference type is java.util.Date

This well-known handlers are registered in AbstractPibifyHandlerCache's protected constructor.

Adding custom hand-written handlers

If you want to add custom handlers, you can do so by extending the AbstractPibifyHandlerCache class and registering your custom handlers in the constructor.

public class CustomHandlerCache extends AbstractPibifyHandlerCache {
    public CustomHandlerCache() {
        super();
        // Type is the class type of the object
        super.mapBuilder.put(type, new CustomHandler());
    }
}

Then merge CustomHandlerCache with the generated PibifyHandlerCache using MultiModuleHandlerCache:

new MultiModulePibifyHandlerCache(new CustomHandlerCache(), new PibifyHandlerCache());