Deep copy: Orika vs SerializationUtils

Question

In an entity MyEntity I found something like this

@Override
public MyEntity clone(){
    // TODO: do not use Orika here
    MyEntity clone = new DefaultMapper().map(this, MyEntity.class);
    clone.setFieldA(null);
    clone.setFieldB(null);
    return clone;
}

with DefaultMapper being an orika-mapper:

import javax.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped;

import ma.glasnost.orika.impl.ConfigurableMapper;

@ApplicationScoped
public class DefaultMapper extends ConfigurableMapper {

}

Is it legit to use orika for a deep copy? Or should one rather use SerializationUtils to achieve this?

The reason for the TODO is: Everytime we call clone() orika uses reflection to calculate the actual mapping. Sadly we cannot use injection because we are inside an entity.

We could as well make a constructor in which we map every single field by hand. This is no solution here because there are many fields with deep nesting. Furthermore, if a new column is added, there is a high risk of forgetting to adjust the mapping.

Do you have any better solution than to use orika? Is SerializationUtils an alternative at all?

Answer 1

Orika is way faster. On 10000 map-iterations orika needed 3 ms to map my object. SerializationUtils needed over 3 seconds to do the same. Furthermore, orika has a cache for already mapped objects. Of course this uses more metaspace. It depends on the situation but overall orika is a better solution in my case.