Spring SpEL - Expression Language to create Map of String and Custom Object

Question

I\'m using Spring Boot example to read the following from the properties file.

sub.region.data={\\
    AF: {\'subRegionCd\' : \'34\', \'subR         


        

Answer 1

The #{} operator sends data into spEL parser, what means it will try to convert data into its know types, based on spEL syntax as shown here in Spring Docs.

What happens is that the compiler is unable to convert any data into a SubRegion object:

Cannot convert value of type 'java.util.Collections$UnmodifiableMap' to required type 'com.xxxxxx.model.SubRegion': no matching editors or conversion strategy found

A simple workaround is to nest two Map Objects so you can populate your SubRegion objects after retrieving the values.

yourMap={'key1':{'nestedMapKey1:value', 'nestedMapKey2:value2'}}

In your .properties file with your code:

sub.region.data={'AF':{'subRegionCd':'34', 'subRegionName':'Southern Asia', 'subRegionDesc':'', 'status':'A'}}

and then, in your code:

    @Value("#{${sub.region.data}}")
    private Map> subRegionsMap;
    // (...) handling the SubRegion

My System.out.println(subRegionMap.get("AF"); outputed:

{subRegionCd=34, subRegionName=Southern Asia, subRegionDesc=, status=A}