flexi-gson

A more robust version of the Gson Java - JSON serialisation library. This can handle vague classes and circular references.

Handling "Vague" classes

These occur when the container doesn't specify the type, which is problematic for json.

E.g. suppose you have the Java:

class Foo {
	Object x = new Bar();
}
class Bar {
	String y = ":)";
}

This will produce the json:

{"x":{"y":":)"}}

Note that the type information -- that x is an instance of Bar -- has been lost.

This case happens all the time in Java, either through using interfaces or Maps. So we'd like to handle it!

The Parent GSON: Version ?? TODO rebase of the current version

This version of GSON was "hand-forked" from the old Google Code version control system (which wasn't git).

Now that gson has moved from Google Code to Git and GitHub -- it'd be good to fork the official repo, and re-do our edits to that.

Unfortunately that is likely to be painful, as they've shifted quite a few classes around.