Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Marshalling : Jaxb


A Marshaller is used to write an object graph into XML. To write an object o to a file, you would do
Marshaller marshaller = context.createMarshaller();
    marshaller.marshal( o, new FileOutputStream("foo.xml") );
There are other overloaded versions which allow you to produce XML as a a DOM tree or as SAX events. For example, by using StringWriter, you can marshal an object into a string. You can also marshal an object graph to a javax.xml.transform.Result object.
In the previous version of JAXB, this functionality was provided as a method on the generated class, and the number of formats was limited. Making it a separate interface enables mapping of existing classes to XML in the future.
In the previous version of JAXB, there was no provision for controlling the formatting. In the new API, you can control the behavior of marshalling by setting Marshaller properties. For example, you can toggle indentation of the XML. More importantly, the mechanism is extensible, which means JAXB providers can expose advanced features.
Although you can customize the behavior of marshalling to some degree by using this mechanism, there's a good chance it doesn't fill your needs completely. For example, some people might want to use tabs for indentation and others might prefer spaces. In some schemas, certain elements cannot be indented without changing the meaning. You might want to control the namespace prefixes. Or you might want to add a processing instruction to the document. In addition, relying on vendor-specific properties compromises portability.
The new version of JAXB can produce XML as SAX events. That is, you can pass ContentHandler and have it receive SAX events from a JAXB object. This gives client apps plenty of chances to modify XML. For example, you can add and remove elements or attributes, use one of the freely available serializers ( XMLWriter by David Megginson, org.apache.xml.serialize.XMLSerializer) for better output, or write your own XML serializer that prints XML in your preferred way.
Finally, you can ask a Marshaller to marshal an invalid object graph by setting a ValidationEventHandler. If a provider supports error recovery, you can tell it to write XML even if it's incomplete.

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