JAXB Bindings

The default Java to XML binding technology for CXF is Sun's JAXB2 framework. JAXB allows you to override the implementation Java class for each specific XML datatype through use of a bindings file. See the Sun/Oracle tutorial http://download.oracle.com/javaee/5/tutorial/doc/bnbbf.html.

The CXF wsdl2java and java2ws command options are described at the CXF website under User's Guide, Tools: described at http://cxf.apache.org/docs/tools.html. The java2ws tool documentation describes the JAXB bindings customizations and how to change the default XMLGregorianCalendar Date binding.

In AndroMDA, by default we change the XMLGregorianCalendar to java.util.Date, and allow you to configure your own customized binding classes. You can specify your own customized binding classes for many XML datatypes, in andromda.xml default namespace:

<!-- Jaxb2 Adapter classes for customized parse/print, non-standard Java datatypes -->
<property name="XMLDateAdapter"></property>
<property name="XMLDateTimeAdapter"></property>
<property name="XMLTimeAdapter"></property>
<!-- Needed to prevent Integer - BigInteger mismatch with CXF JAXB generated client code -->
<!--property name="XMLIntegerAdapter"></property>
<property name="XMLLongAdapter"></property-->
<!-- Needed to convert from primitive to wrapped Boolean for the correct get/isBoolean accessor from Jaxb2 -->
<property name="XMLBooleanAdapter"></property>

We override the default name for the service interface class, from portType to SEI, and also change the name of the Exception classes from 'Exception' to 'Fault'. JAXB insists on putting the service Exception classes in the same directory as the services themselves, even though the best practice is to put them in a different package.

We enable the XJC simpleBindingMode with <xjc:simple/> in the jaxb_bindings.xjb files, described at http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kohsuke/archive/2006/03/simple_and_bett.html. This assumes that every class is a root element class, with the @XmlRootElement annotation, avoiding the (very ugly) JAXBElement wrapped implementation.

XJC simpleBindingMode also automatically pluralizes all multiplicity * associationEnd name. Andromda must also be configured to pluralize the same relationship names in mda/andromda.xml, or else there is a potential mismatch between the andromda and cxf generated code:

<namespaces>
    <!-- namespace property values used by ALL cartridges -->
    <!-- See http://www.andromda.org/docs/andromda-metafacades/andromda-uml-metafacades/andromda-metafacades-emf-uml2/namespace.html -->
    <namespace name="default">
        <properties>
...
            <!-- Automatically makes English names plural (generally adds s if missing).
            default=true, set to false if using non-English models or Jaxb/CXF 2.0 or JAXB simpleBindingMode=false. -->
            <property name="pluralizeAssociationEndNames">true</property>
            <property name="pluralizeAttributeNames">true</property>
            <property name="pluralizeParameterNames">true</property>

We also use various XJC custom plugins in the jaxb_bindings.xjb files, described at http://java.net/projects/jaxb2-commons/pages/Home. Specifically, by default we enable the following plugins: ValueConstructor, jakarta-commons, Collection setter injector, and default-value plugins. These enhance the java code created by CXF wsdl2java, adding such things as toString methods and attribute/element default values. The xjc arguments default is specified in andromda.xml and can be overridden.

<property name="xjcArguments">-Xts,-Xts:style:simple,-Xdv</property>

Next

Next section: Exceptions and Faults.