Convert Java object to XML string

Question

Yes, yes I know that lots of questions were asked about this topic. But I still cannot find the solution to my problem. I have a property annotated Java object. For example Customer, like in this example. And I want a String representation of it. Google reccomends using JAXB for such purposes. But in all examples created XML file is printed to file or console, like this:

File file = new File("C:\\file.xml");
JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(Customer.class);
Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();

// output pretty printed
jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);

jaxbMarshaller.marshal(customer, file);
jaxbMarshaller.marshal(customer, System.out);

But I have to use this object and send over network in XML format. So I want to get a String which represents XML.

String xmlString = ...
sendOverNetwork(xmlString);

How can I do this?

Answer 1

To convert an Object to XML in Java

Customer.java

package com;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAttribute;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

/**
*
* @author ABsiddik
*/

@XmlRootElement
public class Customer {

int id;
String name;
int age;

String address;
ArrayList<String> mobileNo;


 public int getId() {
    return id;
}

@XmlAttribute
public void setId(int id) {
    this.id = id;
}

public String getName() {
    return name;
}

@XmlElement
public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
}

public int getAge() {
    return age;
}

@XmlElement
public void setAge(int age) {
    this.age = age;
}

public String getAddress() {
    return address;
}

@XmlElement
public void setAddress(String address) {
    this.address = address;
}

public ArrayList<String> getMobileNo() {
    return mobileNo;
}

@XmlElement
public void setMobileNo(ArrayList<String> mobileNo) {
    this.mobileNo = mobileNo;
}


}

ConvertObjToXML.java

package com;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;

/**
*
* @author ABsiddik
*/
public class ConvertObjToXML {

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception
{
    ArrayList<String> numberList = new ArrayList<>();
    numberList.add("01942652579");
    numberList.add("01762752801");
    numberList.add("8800545");

    Customer c = new Customer();

    c.setId(23);
    c.setName("Abu Bakar Siddik");
    c.setAge(45);
    c.setAddress("Dhaka, Bangladesh");
    c.setMobileNo(numberList);

    File file = new File("C:\\Users\\NETIZEN-ONE\\Desktop \\customer.xml");
    JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(Customer.class);
    Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
    jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);

    jaxbMarshaller.marshal(c, file);// this line create customer.xml file in specified path.

    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
    jaxbMarshaller.marshal(c, sw);
    String xmlString = sw.toString();

    System.out.println(xmlString);
}

}

Try with this example..

Answer 2

Some Generic code to create XML Stirng

object --> is Java class to convert it to XML
name --> is just name space like thing - for differentiate

public static String convertObjectToXML(Object object,String name) {
          try {
              StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
              JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(object.getClass());
              Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
              jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
              QName qName = new QName(object.getClass().toString(), name);
              Object root = new JAXBElement<Object>(qName,java.lang.Object.class, object);
              jaxbMarshaller.marshal(root, stringWriter);
              String result = stringWriter.toString();
              System.out.println(result);
              return result;
        }catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return null;
    }

Answer 3

A convenient option is to use javax.xml.bind.JAXB:

StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
JAXB.marshal(customer, sw);
String xmlString = sw.toString();

The reverse process (unmarshal) would be:

Customer customer = JAXB.unmarshal(new StringReader(xmlString), Customer.class);

No need to deal with checked exceptions in this approach.

Answer 4

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException;
import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;

private String generateXml(Object obj, Class objClass) throws JAXBException {
        JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(objClass);
        Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
        jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
        StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
        jaxbMarshaller.marshal(obj, sw);
        return sw.toString();
    }

Answer 5

Use this function to convert Object to xml string (should be called as convertToXml(sourceObject, Object.class); )-->

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement;

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException;

import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;

import javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;

public static <T> String convertToXml(T source, Class<T> clazz) throws JAXBException {
    String result;
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
    JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(clazz);
    Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
    jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
    QName qName = new QName(StringUtils.uncapitalize(clazz.getSimpleName()));
    JAXBElement<T> root = new JAXBElement<T>(qName, clazz, source);
    jaxbMarshaller.marshal(root, sw);
    result = sw.toString();
    return result;
}

Use this function to convert xml string to Object back --> (should be called as createObjectFromXmlString(xmlString, Object.class))

public static T createObjectFromXmlString(String xml, Class clazz) throws JAXBException, IOException{

    T value = null;
    StringReader reader = new StringReader(xml); 
    JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(clazz);
    Unmarshaller jaxbUnmarshaller = jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();
    JAXBElement<T> rootElement=jaxbUnmarshaller.unmarshal(new StreamSource(reader),clazz);
    value = rootElement.getValue();
    return value;
}

Answer 6

As A4L mentioning, you can use StringWriter. Providing here example code:

private static String jaxbObjectToXML(Customer customer) {
    String xmlString = "";
    try {
        JAXBContext context = JAXBContext.newInstance(Customer.class);
        Marshaller m = context.createMarshaller();

        m.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE); // To format XML

        StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
        m.marshal(customer, sw);
        xmlString = sw.toString();

    } catch (JAXBException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return xmlString;
}