@title("Smart Data Binding in UTGB")

= Smart Data Binding in UTGB

UTGB has an support to map data from !XML/JSON/Relational data format to Java class objects, and vice verca. This conversion is automatically done once you write appropriate Java class definitions. 

== An Quick Example

Supporse you have the following XML data (saved as "gene.xml"), which describes a gene object:
<code>
<gene id="1">
   <name>gene1</name>
   <chr>chr1</chr>
   <start>1000</start>
   <end>4000</end>
</gene>
</code>

In order to parse this XML data, you have to write a corresponding Java class definition as follows:
<code>
class Gene 
{
  int id;
  String name;
  String chr;
  int start;
  int end;
  
  // public default constructor
  public Gene() {}
  
  // setter definitions
  public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; }
  public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; }
  public void setChr(String chr) { this.chr = chr; }
  public void setStart(int start) { this.start = start; }
  public void setEnd(int end) { this.end = end; }
 
  // getter definitions
  public int getId() { return id; }
  public Stirng getName() { return name; }
  public String getChr() { return chr; }
  public int getStart() { return start; }
  public int getEnd() { return end; }
}
</code>


To create an instance of the Gene object from the XML file ("gene.xml"), you have to use BeanUtil.createBeanFromXML(target class, input reader) mehtod:
<code>
BufferedReader xmlReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("gene.xml"));
Gene gene = BeanUtil.createBeanFromXML(Gene.class, xmlReader);

// gene.getId() == 1
// gene.getName() == "gene1"
// gene.getChr() == "chr1"
// gene.getStart() == 1000
// gene.getEnd() == 4000
</code>

UTGB automatically converts string data appeared in the XML file into appropriate data type (integer, String, etc. ) by seeing setter methods in the class definition.