convert xml to java object using jaxb (unmarshal)

Question

I have the following XML and I need to convert it into a java object.

<tests>
    <test-data> 
         <title>BookTitle</title> 
         <book>BookName</book> 
         <count>64018</count> 
         <test-data> 
            <title>Book title1</title> 
            <book>Book Name1</book> 
            <count>5</count> 
         </test-data> 
         <test-data> 
            <title>Book title2</title> 
            <book>Book Name3</book> 
            <count>5</count> 
         </test-data> 
         <test-data> 
            <title>Book title3</title> 
            <book>Book Name3</book> 
            <count>4</count> 
         </test-data> 
    </test-data>
</tests>

I am not sure what will be my pojo when I use JAXB to convert it.

I created the following POJOs as per my understanding:

public class Tests {

    TestData testData;

    public TestData getTestData() {
        return testData;
    }

    public void setTestData(TestData testData) {
        this.testData = testData;
    }
}

public class TestData {
    String title;
    String book;
    String count;

    public String getTitle() {
        return title;
    }
    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }
    public String getBook() {
        return book;
    }
    public void setBook(String book) {
        this.book = book;
    }
    public String getCount() {
        return count;
    }
    public void setCount(String count) {
        this.count = count;
    }
}

Please help me. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Tests

On the Tests class we will add an @XmlRootElement annotation. Doing this will let your JAXB implementation know that when a document starts with this element that it should instantiate this class. JAXB is configuration by exception, this means you only need to add annotations where your mapping differs from the default. Since the testData property differs from the default mapping we will use the @XmlElement annotation. You may find the following tutorial helpful: http://wiki.eclipse.org/EclipseLink/Examples/MOXy/GettingStarted

package forum11221136;

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.*;

@XmlRootElement
public class Tests {

    TestData testData;

    @XmlElement(name="test-data")
    public TestData getTestData() {
        return testData;
    }

    public void setTestData(TestData testData) {
        this.testData = testData;
    }

}

TestData

On this class I used the @XmlType annotation to specify the order in which the elements should be ordered in. I added a testData property that appeared to be missing. I also used an @XmlElement annotation for the same reason as in the Tests class.

package forum11221136;

import java.util.List;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.*;

@XmlType(propOrder={"title", "book", "count", "testData"})
public class TestData {
    String title;
    String book;
    String count;
    List<TestData> testData;

    public String getTitle() {
        return title;
    }
    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }
    public String getBook() {
        return book;
    }
    public void setBook(String book) {
        this.book = book;
    }
    public String getCount() {
        return count;
    }
    public void setCount(String count) {
        this.count = count;
    }
    @XmlElement(name="test-data")
    public List<TestData> getTestData() {
        return testData;
    }
    public void setTestData(List<TestData> testData) {
        this.testData = testData;
    }
}

Demo

Below is an example of how to use the JAXB APIs to read (unmarshal) the XML and populate your domain model and then write (marshal) the result back to XML.

package forum11221136;

import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.bind.*;

public class Demo {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(Tests.class);

        Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jc.createUnmarshaller();
        File xml = new File("src/forum11221136/input.xml");
        Tests tests = (Tests) unmarshaller.unmarshal(xml);

        Marshaller marshaller = jc.createMarshaller();
        marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
        marshaller.marshal(tests, System.out);
    }

}