Sorry, but ConvertUtils isn't really designed to do that. It is fundamentally about MAPPING strings (from XML input or web forms, etc) to objects.

The standard converter to the String type simply calls toString on its input object, so you can customise the output for objects of any PARTICULAR class by modifying the toString method of that class.

Or you could replace the converter for target type String.class with a custom converter which inspects the type of the object and does a BIG switch statement. Or maybe even look up a mapping table of subconverter objects BASED on the type of the object being converted.

But in general if you need to do this, then ConvertUtils is probably the wrong tool for your job. You might like to look at morph.sourceforge.net, google for alternatives or craft your own solution.

Sorry, but ConvertUtils isn't really designed to do that. It is fundamentally about mapping strings (from xml input or web forms, etc) to objects.

The standard converter to the String type simply calls toString on its input object, so you can customise the output for objects of any particular class by modifying the toString method of that class.

Or you could replace the converter for target type String.class with a custom converter which inspects the type of the object and does a big switch statement. Or maybe even look up a mapping table of subconverter objects based on the type of the object being converted.

But in general if you need to do this, then ConvertUtils is probably the wrong tool for your job. You might like to look at morph.sourceforge.net, google for alternatives or craft your own solution.