Does JAXB work under Java 5?

Question

Building with maven I get "package javax.xml.bind.annotation does not exist"

What do I need to make JAXB work with Java 5?

Answer 1

JAXB APIs are bundled in JDK1.6, but these are not available in JDK <1.6 (ex: JDK1.5).

I have a Java to XML code written in JDK1.6 and once I switched to JDK1.5, I got the following error:

*Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException
 - with linked exception:
[java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.ContextFactory]
...
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException
 - with linked exception:
[java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.ContextFactory]*
...

JDK1.5 doesnt contain the JAXB APIs and therefore I applied the following fix: I used JDK1.5 and the following two JARS: jaxb-api-2.0.jar and jaxb-impl-2.0.jar in my classpath and the error was resolved.

I hope this helps. Another Reference: http://www.mkyong.com/java/jaxb-hello-world-example/

Answer 2

Using the following versions will work with JDK5:

      <!-- 
              versions after 2.2.4 requires jdk6, please refer 
             to https://java.net/jira/browse/JAXB-890 
       -->

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.xml.bind</groupId>
        <artifactId>jaxb-impl</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.4-1</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>
        <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.4</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.xml.soap</groupId>
        <artifactId>saaj-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.3.3</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 3

Jaxb should work with Java 5 but it seems that there are more people having issues with it. Could it be that are missing some jars?

Check out this forum post.

Answer 4

It seems there are many versions and differing paths to get JAXB from a maven repository.

My best guess for the correct artifact is javax.xml.bind:jaxb-api:2.2

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

Answer 5

You can download the reference implementation (RI) from http://jaxb.dev.java.net/.

I can't advise you on how to make it work with maven though - more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me.

Java6 included a slightly modified version of the RI, but the RI itself works just fine with Java5.