Nested or dependant JavaFx Properties

In JavaFx the concept of bindable properties makes life pretty much easier. Here is an example: You want the text of a Label be the same, as in one of your properties: myLabel.textProperty().bind(myProperty);

But sometimes you want to bind to a property of an object, that is held in another property. Lets make an example. You have a property selectedCustomer which holds a Customer object. In that Customer object you have a String property called name. If you bind directly to name with bind(selectedCustomer.get().nameProperty()) you get in trouble, if the value of selectedCustomer changes. Of course you can fix that with implementing a ChangeListener and add it to selectedCustomer and rebind it on the change.

Here is a class, that encapsulated that for you, here is the code for your free use:


This is a Java 8 example and makes use of the new Lamda features. Of course you can use that with replacing the lambdas with anonymous inner classes.

The use is very easy:
ObjectProperty<Customer> selectedCustomer =...;
ObjectProperty<String> selectedName = new NestedObjectProperty<>(selectedCustomer, 
  (Customer customer)-> customer.nameProperty(), false);


The Parameters of the constructor are:

• The property that delivers the property to bind against, in our example selectedCustomer
• A Function implementation, that returns the property to bind against, in our example it gets a Customer as parameter and returns a String property
• A boolean, if the binding should be unidirectional or bidirectional