See Glazed Lists for details on the library.

Utility class:

import java.util.List;

import javax.swing.table.TableModel;

import ca.odell.glazedlists.EventList;
import ca.odell.glazedlists.GlazedLists;
import ca.odell.glazedlists.gui.TableFormat;
import ca.odell.glazedlists.swing.EventTableModel;

/**
 * Wrapper to simplify table model creation with help from 
 * <a h ref="http://publicobject.com/glazedlists/">Glazed Lists</a> library.
 * @author Victor Ott
 */
public class ModelUtil
{
	/**
	 * Build a read-only table model using glazed lists library. Columns not having a corresponding name
	 * are reachable via "table.getModel().getValueAt(r, c)", starting with index "table.getModel().getColumnCount()",
	 * but will not be displayed. This way renderers and editors might access additional data, but also have 
	 * to posess extra knowledge of e.g. total amount of properties available.
	 * @param <T> data row type
	 * @param model the data
	 * @param clazz row class
	 * @param columnProperties names of bean properties which deliver the column values
	 * @param columnLabels columns labels, drives the amount of shown columns from 'columnProperties'
	 * @return TableModel
	 */
	@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
	public static <T> TableModel buildTableModel(List<T> model, Class<T> clazz, String[] columnProperties,
	    String[] columnLabels)
	{
		return buildTableModel(model, clazz, columnProperties, columnLabels, null);
	}

	/**
	 * Build a potentially writable table model using glazed lists library. Columns not having a corresponding name
	 * are reachable via "table.getModel().getValueAt(row, col)", starting with index "table.getModel().getColumnCount()",
	 * but will not be displayed. This way renderers and editors might access additional data, but also have 
	 * to posess extra knowledge of e.g. total amount of properties available.
	 * @param <T> data row type
	 * @param model the data
	 * @param clazz row class
	 * @param columnProperties names of bean properties which deliver the column values
	 * @param columnLabels columns labels, drives the amount of shown columns from 'columnProperties'
	 * @param editableColumns true: column is editable, false: column is read-only
	 * @return TableModel
	 */
	@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
	public static <T> TableModel buildTableModel(List<T> model, Class<T> clazz, String[] columnProperties,
	    String[] columnLabels, boolean[] editableColumns)
	{
		EventList<T> rolesOfContextList = GlazedLists.eventList(model);

		TableFormat<T> tableFormat;
		if (editableColumns == null)
			tableFormat = GlazedLists.tableFormat(clazz, columnProperties, columnLabels);
		else
			tableFormat = GlazedLists.tableFormat(clazz, columnProperties, columnLabels, editableColumns);

		TableModel tableModel = new EventTableModel<T>(rolesOfContextList, tableFormat);

		return tableModel;
	}

	/**
	 * Hidden Constructor
	 */
	private ModelUtil()
	{
	}
}

Usage:

[...]
	// ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	List<DummyEntry> entries = new ArrayList<DummyEntry>(20);
	entries.add(new DummyEntry(0, "peter", "parker", 25));
	entries.add(new DummyEntry(1, "bruce", "banner", 11));
	entries.add(new DummyEntry(2, "klark", "kent", 33));
	entries.add(new DummyEntry(3, "bruce", "wayne", 7));

	// ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	String[] columnProperties = new String[] { "fn", "ln", "age", "id" };
	String[] columnLabels = new String[] { "First name", "Last name", "Age" };
	boolean[] editableColumns = { true, true, false, false };

	TableModel tableModel = ModelUtil.buildTableModel(entries, DummyEntry.class, columnProperties, columnLabels,
	    editableColumns);

	XTable table = new XTable(tableModel);
[...]

Result:

For completeness, here also a stripped part of the data bean definition:

public class DummyEntry
{
	private int _id;
	private String _fn;
	private String _ln;
	private int _age;

	public DummyEntry()
	{
	}

	public DummyEntry(int id, String fn, String ln, int age)
	{
		_id = id;
		_fn = fn;
		_ln = ln;
		_age = age;
	}

	public int getId()
	{
		return _id;
	}

	public void setId(int id)
	{
		_id = id;
	}

	public String getFn()
	{
		return _fn;
	}
[...]

--Victor Ott 27-Nov-2007 01:14 CET