JAXB XJC code generation - adding @XmlRootElement and Joda DateTime

Here's an interesting scenario that I encountered the other day. I did eventually reach a solution on my own. However, I'd welcome any comments and better approaches.

The requirements

I want to generate JAXB objects based on a collection of XSDs using XJC as part of a Maven build. I'll be using JAXB-RI 2.1 as the implementation.

In addition, I want to make sure that all objects implement a signature interface (e.g. MySignature) which has no methods. Also, I want to avoid using XmlGregorianCalendar and have Joda DataTime instead (with a suitable adapter that I'll provide called DateUtils with parse() and format() methods).

Finally, I want to be able to select certain objects to act as root elements so I'll need to selectively add @XmlRootElement to some objects, and I have suitable XPath expressions to locate them.

I can't make any changes to the XSDs.

The approach

Step 1 - Configuring the pom.xml

Configure Maven to use the XJC plugin as follows:




org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2
maven-jaxb2-plugin
0.7.4


generate-domain1

generate


false

domain1.xsd


domain1-bindings.xjb

true
org.example.domain1
${project.build.directory}/generated-sources/domain1

-Xannotate



org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons
jaxb2-basics
0.6.0


org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons
jaxb2-basics-annotate
0.6.0










The use of a dedicated execution configuration is there to allow additional mutually exclusive XSDs to be built using a differe

The ` tag generates a new org.w3._2001.xmlschema.AdapterN class for each new javaType definition. So a better approach would be:



• Create a class extending XmlAdapter. In it you will have to override the both methods defined. So in example, the class could be org.example.DateUtilsAdapter`.

-
Use this tag instead:

Source

StackExchange Code Review Q#1877, answer score: 8