EclipseLink/Examples/MOXy/Dynamic/StaticComparison

Overview

In this example we will compare dynamic JAXB to the more familiar static form. The main thing to note is that the use of JAXB is almost identical, the main difference is using the domain model.

Static JAXB

We will bootstrap our JAXBContext on annotated classes generated from an XML schema. If the XML schema were to change we would need to regenerate the classes.

JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(org.example.Customer.class);
 
Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();
Customer customer = (Customer) unmarshaller.unmarshal(inputStream);
 
Address address = new Address();
address.setStreet("123 A Street");
address.setCity("Any Town");
customer.setAddress(address);
 
Marshaller marshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
marshaller.marshal(customer, System.out);

Dynamic JAXB

Using dynamic JAXB we will bootstrap our JAXBContext on hte XML schema itself. If the XML schema were to change, we would not need to regenerate any classes.

DynamicJAXBContext jaxbContext = DynamicJAXBContextFactory.createContextFromXSD(xsdInputStream, null, null, null);
 
Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();
DynamicEntity customer = (DynamicEntity) unmarshaller.unmarshal(inputStream);
 
DynamicEntity address = jaxbContext.newDynamicEntity("org.example.Address");
address.set("street", "123 A Street");
address.set("city", "Any Town");
customer.set("address", address);
 
Marshaller marshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
marshaller.marshal(customer, System.out);

Next Steps

Next we'll dig deeper into creating a Dynamic JAXB Context from XML Schema.