ObjectTranslator

ObjectTranslator is a utility class I wrote when ActionScript 3 was brand new. It converts generic ActionScript 3 objects into class instances.

This code originally comes from a weblog entry in October of 2006, now archived at http://archive.darronschall.com/weblog/2006/10/convert-generic-objects-into-class-instances.html

Usage

Usage is as follows:

import com.darronschall.examples.vo.Book;
import com.darronschall.serialization.ObjectTranslator;

// Define an object with properties that mimic the variable names
// inside of the Book class
var bookObj:Object = { title: "My Book title", pageCount: 10, inLibrary: true };

// Convert the generic object into an instance of the Book class
var book:Book = ObjectTranslator.objectToInstance( bookObj, Book ) as Book;

Limitations

The code is not yet recursive (feel free to fork, implement, and submit a pull request!). If you have nested value objects that you're converting to class instances, you'll have to manually go through the object graph:

import com.darronschall.examples.vo.Book;
import com.darronschall.examples.vo.Student;
import com.darronschall.serialization.ObjectTranslator;

var studentObj:Object = { firstName: "test first",
			  lastName: "test last",
				  favoriteBook: { title: "Favorite Book!" }
				};	
							
// First we need to convert the nested objects to classes
studentObj.favoriteBook = ObjectTranslator.objectToInstance( studentObj.favoriteBook, Book );
	
// Convert the student object to a Student class
var student:Student = ObjectTranslator.objectToInstance( studentObj, Student ) as Student;