To copy or map typed DataElements, use the convertTo and convertFrom methods provided by the PropertyDescription interface. These methods convert between data elements of any object and a specific business object. The advantage of using these methods is that they perform the conversion directly without requiring any intermediate object instantiation that the formatToWriter and unformatFromReader methods require. In addition, there is a formatter, DataMapperConverterFormat, that uses these methods. See the Formatters documentation for information on this class.

To validate strings against a validator whose owning type is not a String, use the validateObject(Object) method. With this method, the descriptor does not have to first convert the String into the proper type and then call to the validator to actually validate the object. This method directly uses the typed data validator to validate the passed object. In this case, because the passed object is a String, the validator must be able to validate strings.