--- Suggested by Mark Helmstetter ---

A converter that provides functionality such
that if an object has a method such as "public Object fromString(String str)". It
seems that such a converter could be very valuable to avoid writing a special
converter for lots of relatively simple objects that require special handling that
the packaged converters don't address.

--- Additional notes by Joe ---

I think this is a good idea.

An interface could be introduced for this that objects can implement if they want to be handled by the converter:

package com.thoughtworks.xstream;

public interface StringSerializable {
  String toString(); // implicit from Object anyway, but in the interface for clarity
  void fromString(String string);
}

Any objects implementing this method would also require a default constructor - similar to the contract of java.io.Externalizable.