Question

I am trying to output to XML a table bean with a table name, row count and a list of columns. If I annotate them like attributes, they show:
So this definition:

@XmlRootElement(name = "table")
public class Table {

    private String tableName;
    private int rowCount;
    private List<Column> columnList;

    @XmlAttribute(name = "name")
    public String getTableName() {
        return tableName;
    }

    @XmlAttribute(name = "rowCount")
    public int getRowCount() {
        return rowCount;
    }

    @XmlElement(name = "column")
    public List<Column> getColumnList() {
        return columnList;
    }

}

Outputs this:

    <tables>
     <table name="GGS_MARKER" rowCount="19190">
     <column>
      <columnName>MARKER_TEXT</columnName>
      <datatype>VARCHAR2</datatype>
      <length>4000.0</length>
     </column>
...

But if I change @XmlAttribute with @XmlElement, it just shows:

    <tables>
     <table>
     <column>
      <columnName>MARKER_TEXT</columnName>
      <datatype>VARCHAR2</datatype>
      <length>4000.0</length>
     </column>
...

What should I put in the class to get “name” and “rowcount” as elements?

Answer 1

All you need to do in your example is change @XmlAttribute to @XmlElement. If as in your post you only have get methods and not set methods you will need to explicitly add the @XmlElement annotation as the default one won’t be applied in this use case (by default all unmapped properties are assumed to have a @XmlElement annotation).

Table

package forum10794522;

import java.util.*;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.*;

@XmlRootElement(name = "table")
public class Table {

    static Table EXAMPLE_TABLE;
    static {
        EXAMPLE_TABLE = new Table();
        EXAMPLE_TABLE.tableName = "GGS_MARKER";
        EXAMPLE_TABLE.rowCount = 19190;
        List<Column> columns = new ArrayList<Column>(2);
        columns.add(new Column());
        columns.add(new Column());
        EXAMPLE_TABLE.columnList = columns;
    }

    private String tableName;
    private int rowCount;
    private List<Column> columnList;

    @XmlElement(name = "name")
    public String getTableName() {
        return tableName;
    }

    @XmlElement(name = "rowCount")
    public int getRowCount() {
        return rowCount;
    }

    @XmlElement(name = "column")
    public List<Column> getColumnList() {
        return columnList;
    }

}

Demo

package forum10794522;

import javax.xml.bind.*;

public class Demo {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(Table.class);

        Marshaller marshaller = jc.createMarshaller();
        marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
        marshaller.marshal(Table.EXAMPLE_TABLE, System.out);
    }

}

Output

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<table>
    <column/>
    <column/>
    <rowCount>19190</rowCount>
    <name>GGS_MARKER</name>
</table>