How to convert a Java object (bean) to key-value pairs (and vice versa)?

This is a method for converting a Java object to a Map

public static Map<String, Object> ConvertObjectToMap(Object obj) throws 
    IllegalAccessException, 
    IllegalArgumentException, 
    InvocationTargetException {
        Class<?> pomclass = obj.getClass();
        pomclass = obj.getClass();
        Method[] methods = obj.getClass().getMethods();


        Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        for (Method m : methods) {
           if (m.getName().startsWith("get") && !m.getName().startsWith("getClass")) {
              Object value = (Object) m.invoke(obj);
              map.put(m.getName().substring(3), (Object) value);
           }
        }
    return map;
}

This is how to call it

   Test test = new Test()
   Map<String, Object> map = ConvertObjectToMap(test);

Lots of potential solutions, but let's add just one more. Use Jackson (JSON processing lib) to do "json-less" conversion, like:

ObjectMapper m = new ObjectMapper();
Map<String,Object> props = m.convertValue(myBean, Map.class);
MyBean anotherBean = m.convertValue(props, MyBean.class);

(this blog entry has some more examples)

You can basically convert any compatible types: compatible meaning that if you did convert from type to JSON, and from that JSON to result type, entries would match (if configured properly can also just ignore unrecognized ones).

Works well for cases one would expect, including Maps, Lists, arrays, primitives, bean-like POJOs.

There is always apache commons beanutils but of course it uses reflection under the hood

Code generation would be the only other way I can think of. Personally, I'd got with a generally reusable reflection solution (unless that part of the code is absolutely performance-critical). Using JMS sounds like overkill (additional dependency, and that's not even what it's meant for). Besides, it probably uses reflection as well under the hood.