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Adrian Matei for Codever

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at codever.dev

How to unmarshall xml string to java object with JAXB

Given the following Superhero class:

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

import lombok.Getter;
import lombok.Setter;

@XmlRootElement(name = "super-hero")
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@Getter
@Setter
class SuperHero {
  @XmlElement(name = "name")
  String name;

  @XmlElement(name = "super-power")
  String superPower;
}
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You can convert an XML String to a SuperHero instance with the following code:

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;

import java.io.StringReader;

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

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.junit.platform.runner.JUnitPlatform;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

@RunWith(JUnitPlatform.class)
class TestXmlStringToObjectUnmarshalling {

  static final String superHeroXml =
      "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>"
          + "<super-hero>"
          + "  <name>Superman</name>"
          + "  <super-power>Flight</super-power>"
          + "</super-hero>";

  @Test
  void testXmlUnmarshalling() throws JAXBException {
    JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(SuperHero.class);
    Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();

    StringReader reader = new StringReader(superHeroXml);
    SuperHero superHero = (SuperHero) unmarshaller.unmarshal(reader);

    assertEquals("Flight", superHero.getSuperPower());
  }
}

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Note:

  • create a JAXBContext which includes the SuperHero class - JAXBContext.newInstance(SuperHero.class)
  • create a JAXB Unmarshaller and apply the unmarshal method to a StringReader wrapping the text (it could be also a FileReader or any other Reader for that matter)

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