Using JAXB to unmarshal/marshal a List

Question

I'm trying to create a very simple REST server. I just have a test method that will return a List of Strings. Here's the code:

@GET
@Path("/test2")
public List test2(){
    List list=new Vector();
    list.add("a");
    list.add("b");
    return list;
}

It gives the following error:

SEVERE: A message body writer for Java type,
class java.util.Vector, and MIME media type,
application/octet-stream, was not found

I was hoping JAXB had a default setting for simple types like String, Integer, etc. I guess not. Here's what I imagined:

<Strings>
  <String>a</String>
  <String>b</String>
</Strings>

What's the easiest way to make this method work?

Answer 1

I would've saved time if I found Resteasy Jackson Provider sooner.

Just add the Resteasy Jackson Provider JAR. No entity wrappers. No XML annotations. No custom message body writers.

Answer 2

If you are using maven in the jersey project add below in pom.xml and update project dependencies so that Jaxb is able to detect model class and convert list to Media type application XML:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.sun.xml.bind</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxb-core</artifactId>
    <version>2.2.11</version>
</dependency>

Answer 3

This can be done MUCH easier using wonderful XStream library. No wrappers, no annotations.

Target XML

<Strings>
  <String>a</String>
  <String>b</String>
</Strings>

Serialization

(String alias can be avoided by using lowercase string tag, but I used OP's code)

List <String> list = new ArrayList <String>();
list.add("a");
list.add("b");

XStream xStream = new XStream();
xStream.alias("Strings", List.class);
xStream.alias("String", String.class);
String result = xStream.toXML(list);

Deserialization

Deserialization into ArrayList

XStream xStream = new XStream();
xStream.alias("Strings", ArrayList.class);
xStream.alias("String", String.class);
xStream.addImplicitArray(ArrayList.class, "elementData");
List <String> result = (List <String>)xStream.fromXML(file);

Deserialization into String[]

XStream xStream = new XStream();
xStream.alias("Strings", String[].class);
xStream.alias("String", String.class);
String[] result = (String[])xStream.fromXML(file);

Note, that XStream instance is thread-safe and can be pre-configured, shrinking code amount to one-liners.

XStream can also be used as a default serialization mechanism for JAX-RS service. Example of plugging XStream in Jersey can be found here

Answer 4

For a more general solution, for JAXB-XML serialization of any top level list , which only requires 1 new class to be written, check out the solution given in this question:

Is it possible to programmatically configure JAXB?

public class Wrapper<T> {

private List<T> items = new ArrayList<T>();

@XmlAnyElement(lax=true)
public List<T> getItems() {
    return items;
}

}

//JAXBContext is thread safe and so create it in constructor or 
//setter or wherever:
... 
JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(Wrapper.class, clazz);
... 

public String marshal(List<T> things, Class clazz) {

  //configure JAXB and marshaller     
  Marshaller m = jc.createMarshaller();
  m.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);

  //Create wrapper based on generic list of objects
  Wrapper<T> wrapper = new Wrapper<T>(things);
  JAXBElement<Wrapper> wrapperJAXBElement = new JAXBElement<Wrapper>(new QName(clazz.getSimpleName().toLowerCase()+"s"), Wrapper.class, wrapper);

  StringWriter result = new StringWriter();
  //marshal!
  m.marshal(wrapperJAXBElement, result);

  return result.toString();

}

Answer 5

Finally I've solved it using JacksonJaxbJsonProvider It requires few changes in your Spring context.xml and Maven pom.xml

In your Spring context.xml add JacksonJaxbJsonProvider to the <jaxrs:server>:

<jaxrs:server id="restService" address="/resource">
    <jaxrs:providers>
        <bean class="org.codehaus.jackson.jaxrs.JacksonJaxbJsonProvider"/>
    </jaxrs:providers>
</jaxrs:server>

In your Maven pom.xml add:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-jaxrs</artifactId>
    <version>1.9.0</version>
</dependency>

Answer 6

I have encountered this pattern a few times, I found that the easiest way is to define an inner class with JaxB annotations. (anyways, you'll probably want to define the root tag name)

so your code would look something like this

@GET
@Path("/test2")
public Object test2(){
   MyResourceWrapper wrapper = new MyResourceWrapper();
   wrapper .add("a");
   wrapper .add("b");
   return wrapper ;
}

@XmlRootElement(name="MyResource")
private static class MyResourceWrapper {
       @XmlElement(name="Item")
       List<String> list=new ArrayList<String>();
       MyResourceWrapper (){}

       public void add(String s){ list.add(s);}
 }

if you work with javax.rs (jax-rs) I'd return Response object with the wrapper set as its entity