public Representation<?> createRepresentation(Class<?> clazz) {
/* If we have a specific representation for this type, use it. */
if (reprMap_.containsKey(clazz)) {
return reprMap_.get(clazz);
}
/* Arrays need treating specially. */
else if (clazz.isArray()) {
Class<?> scalarClass = getScalarClass(clazz);
if (reprMap_.containsKey(scalarClass)) {
Representation<?> scalarRepr = reprMap_.get(scalarClass);
/* If the scalar type is a structured object
* (either appears in the map of known types with
* isColumn=false, or implicitly structured by being absent
* from that map),
* there's not much we can do with it, since you
* can't map that structure to a sequence of columns
* (you don't know how many there would be).
* So we have to discard it. */
if (scalarRepr == null || !scalarRepr.isColumn()) {
return null;
}
/* If the scalar type is a column type, assume that it's
* OK for an array (or array of arrays, or ...) to be
* a column too. Note however that this code is not
* quite right at the moment; it will work for identity
* representations, but ones that convert input objects
* to a different representation (e.g. toString) will
* go wrong here. */
else {
return createSimpleColumnRepresentation(clazz);
}
} else {
return null;
}
}
/* Non-array types with no special instructions will be treated
* as structured objects. */
else {
return createIdentityRepresentation(clazz, false);
}
}
