javax.xml.bind.JAXBException: Class *** nor any of

Question

I'm trying to pass a object via REST web service. Following are my classes explains the functionality that I need using some example codes.

Rest Web Service Class method

@POST
@Path("/find")
@Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED)
@Produces({MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON})
public Response getDepartments(){
    Response response = new Response();

    try {

        response.setCode(MessageCode.SUCCESS);
        response.setMessage("Department Names");
        Department dept = new Department("12", "Financial");
        response.setPayload(dept);

    } catch (Exception e) {
        response.setCode(MessageCode.ERROR);
        response.setMessage(e.getMessage());
        e.printStackTrace();
    }       
    return response;
}

Response Class

import java.io.Serializable;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

@XmlRootElement

public class Response implements Serializable{

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    public enum MessageCode {
        SUCCESS, ERROR, UNKNOWN
    }

    private MessageCode code;
    private String message;
    private Object payload;

    public MessageCode getCode() {
        return code;
    }

    public void setCode(MessageCode code) {
        this.code = code;
    }

    public String getMessage() {
        return message;
    }

    public void setMessage(String message) {
        this.message = message;
    }

    public Object getPayload() {
        return payload;
    }

    public void setPayload(Object payload) {
        this.payload = payload;
    }
}

Department Class

@XmlRootElement
public class Department implements java.io.Serializable {


    private String deptNo;
    private String deptName;


    public Department() {
    }

    public Department(String deptNo, String deptName) {
        this.deptNo = deptNo;
        this.deptName = deptName;
    }

    public String getDeptNo() {
        return this.deptNo;
    }

    public void setDeptNo(String deptNo) {
        this.deptNo = deptNo;
    }

    public String getDeptName() {
        return this.deptName;
    }

    public void setDeptName(String deptName) {
        this.deptName = deptName;
    }

}

When I make a call to getDepartments method in the rest web service class it returns following exceptions. But If I change the type Object of the payload to Department in the Response class it returns the json response correctly. But since I need to use this Response class for different types of Classes I can't restring the payload to one class type. Can anyone please help me in this matter?

Stack Trace

Dec 27, 2012 9:34:18 PM com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerResponse logException
SEVERE: Mapped exception to response: 500 (Internal Server Error)
javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException: javax.xml.bind.MarshalException
 - with linked exception:
[javax.xml.bind.JAXBException: class Department nor any of its super class is known to this context.]
    at com.sun.jersey.core.provider.jaxb.AbstractRootElementProvider.writeTo(AbstractRootElementProvider.java:159)
    at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerResponse.write(ContainerResponse.java:306)
    at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl._handleRequest(WebApplicationImpl.java:1437)
    at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl.handleRequest(WebApplicationImpl.java:1349)
    at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl.handleRequest(WebApplicationImpl.java:1339)
    at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.WebComponent.service(WebComponent.java:416)
    at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:537)
    at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:699)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:511)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:401)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:216)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.SessionHandler.handle(SessionHandler.java:182)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:766)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.handle(WebAppContext.java:450)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:326)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:542)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.content(HttpConnection.java:945)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:756)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:218)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:404)
    at org.mortbay.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run(SelectChannelEndPoint.java:410)
    at org.mortbay.thread.QueuedThreadPool$PoolThread.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:582)
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.MarshalException
 - with linked exception:
[javax.xml.bind.JAXBException: class Department nor any of its super class is known to this context.]
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.write(MarshallerImpl.java:323)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.marshal(MarshallerImpl.java:177)
    at com.sun.jersey.json.impl.BaseJSONMarshaller.marshallToJSON(BaseJSONMarshaller.java:103)
    at com.sun.jersey.json.impl.provider.entity.JSONRootElementProvider.writeTo(JSONRootElementProvider.java:136)
    at com.sun.jersey.core.provider.jaxb.AbstractRootElementProvider.writeTo(AbstractRootElementProvider.java:157)
    ... 23 more
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException: class Department nor any of its super class is known to this context.
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.reportError(XMLSerializer.java:250)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.reportError(XMLSerializer.java:265)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsXsiType(XMLSerializer.java:657)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.property.SingleElementNodeProperty.serializeBody(SingleElementNodeProperty.java:156)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.ClassBeanInfoImpl.serializeBody(ClassBeanInfoImpl.java:344)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsSoleContent(XMLSerializer.java:597)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.ClassBeanInfoImpl.serializeRoot(ClassBeanInfoImpl.java:328)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsRoot(XMLSerializer.java:498)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.write(MarshallerImpl.java:320)
    ... 27 more
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException: class Department nor any of its super class is known to this context.
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.JAXBContextImpl.getBeanInfo(JAXBContextImpl.java:611)
    at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsXsiType(XMLSerializer.java:652)
    ... 33 more

Answer 1

JAX-RS implementations automatically support marshalling/unmarshalling of classes based on discoverable JAXB annotations, but because your payload is declared as Object, I think the created JAXBContext misses the Department class and when it's time to marshall it it doesn't know how.

A quick and dirty fix would be to add a XmlSeeAlso annotation to your response class:

@XmlRootElement
@XmlSeeAlso({Department.class})
public class Response implements Serializable {
  ....

or something a little more complicated would be "to enrich" the JAXB context for the Response class by using a ContextResolver:

import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.ContextResolver;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.Provider;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException;

@Provider
@Produces({ MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON, MediaType.APPLICATION_XML })
public class ResponseResolver implements ContextResolver<JAXBContext> {
    private JAXBContext ctx;

    public ResponseResolver() {
        try {
            this.ctx = JAXBContext.newInstance(

                        Response.class, 
                        Department.class

                    );
        } catch (JAXBException ex) {
            throw new RuntimeException(ex);
        }
    }

    public JAXBContext getContext(Class<?> type) {
        return (type.equals(Response.class) ? ctx : null);
    }
}

Answer 2

I had faced the similar error when supporting one application. It was about the generated classes for a SOAP Webservice.

The issue was caused due to the missing classes. When javax.xml.bind.Marshaller was trying to marshal the jaxb object it was not finding all dependent classes after which was generated by wsdl and xsd. after adding the jar with all the classes in the class path the issue was resolved.

Answer 3

This exception can be solved by specifying a full class path.

Example:

If you are using a class named ExceptionDetails

---

Wrong Way of passing arguments

JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(ExceptionDetails.class);

---

Right Way of passing arguments

JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(com.tibco.schemas.exception.ExceptionDetails.class);

Answer 4

I have the same problem and I solved it by adding package to explore to the Jaxb2marshaller. For spring will be define a bean like this:

@Bean
    public Jaxb2Marshaller marshaller() {
        Jaxb2Marshaller marshaller = new Jaxb2Marshaller();
        String[] packagesToScan= {"<packcge which contain the department class>"};
        marshaller.setPackagesToScan(packagesToScan);
        return marshaller;
    }

By this way if all your request and response classes are in the same package you do not need to specifically indicate the classes on the JAXBcontext

Answer 5

I had a similar issue using the JAXB reference implementation and JBoss AS 7.1. I was able to write an integration test that confirmed JAXB worked outside of the JBoss environment (suggesting the problem might be the class loader in JBoss).

This is the code that was giving the error (i.e. not working):

private static final JAXBContext JC;

static {
    try {
        JC = JAXBContext.newInstance("org.foo.bar");
    } catch (Exception exp) {
        throw new RuntimeException(exp);
    }
}

and this is the code that worked (ValueSet is one of the classes marshaled from my XML).

private static final JAXBContext JC;

static {
    try {
        ClassLoader classLoader = ValueSet.class.getClassLoader();
        JC = JAXBContext.newInstance("org.foo.bar", classLoader);
    } catch (Exception exp) {
        throw new RuntimeException(exp);
    }
}

In some cases I got the Class nor any of its super class is known to this context. In other cases I also got an exception of org.foo.bar.ValueSet cannot be cast to org.foo.bar.ValueSet (similar to the issue described here: ClassCastException when casting to the same class).