Java & XML Data Binding

Class Generation

Now that you have some Zeus ready for use, it is time for a practical discussion. In this section and the rest of the chapter, sample code will be shown to demonstrate how Zeus works. For this example, I’ll demonstrate the use of Zeus with a standard web server deployment descriptor, web.xml. The sample application will read such a descriptor in and print out various data from the document. This may seem trivial, which is exactly the point.

Reading in a complex XML document and obtaining data from it becomes a trivial task instead of a large coding assignment. Furthermore, you will find it easy to customize the example to display descriptor information in a web application, a Swing GUI, or any other visual style you like.

Justifying Data Binding

There are literally thousands of common applications of data binding. I get a lot of mail asking about suggestions for helping programmers justify the use of data binding. That tells me that developers realize the importance of this technology, but are having a hard time explaining that importance to managers. To help you out, here are a few ideas for getting the point across:

• Junior-level programmers can start coding with XML today, instead of spending weeks learning SAX or DOM.

• It’s relatively easy to implement web services using data binding, since SOAP and WSDL are both XML formats that data binding can marshal and unmarshal into.

• You can fire that $400-an-hour SAX consultant and let a full-time employee take over his ...