Java EE 8 Application Development

Converting data between Java and XML with JAXB

In our previous example, we were processing "raw" XML received as a parameter, as well as returning "raw" XML to our client. In a real application, we would more than likely parse the XML received from the client and use it to populate a Java object. Additionally, any XML that we need to return to the client would have to be constructed from a Java object.

Converting data from Java to XML and back is such a common use case that the Java EE specification provides an API to do it. This API is the Java API for XML Binding (JAXB).

JAXB makes converting data from Java to XML transparent and trivial; all we need to do is decorate the class we wish to convert to XML with the @XmlRootElement annotation. ...