Question

I have an Object Ticket which has an element totalNoOfTickets associated with it. I use this object Ticket in many methods of my restful service. However, i only need the element ‘totalNoOfTickets’ for one method only and not others….

For example, in one of my method, i say…

Ticket.setTotalNoOfTickets(7);

I do not use this totalNoOfTickets in other methods. Hence,i do not set it in other methods.

Now in my Ticket.java…I have

public class Ticket
    extends ActionType {

    @XmlElementWrapper(name = "Tickets")
    @XmlElement(name = "Ticket")
    protected List<Ticket> tickets;

    @XmlElement(name = "TotalNumOfTickets")
    protected int totalNumofTickets;

    public int getTotalNumofTickets() {
        return totalNumofTickets;
    }

    public void setTotalNumofTickets(int totalNumoftokens) {
        this.totalNumofTickets = totalNumoftickets;
    }

In method responses, where i set the totalNumoftickets, response contains:

<TotalNumOfTickets>7</TotalNumOfTickets>

But, even in responses, where i do not need totalNumoftickets, reponse contains

<TotalNumOfTickets>0</TotalNumOfTickets>

Is there any way in Jax-B where it would not have

<TotalNumOfTickets>0</TotalNumOfTickets>

in the response of methods, where i do not set totalNumoftickets?…can i use that element optionally

Answer 1

By default a JAXB (JSR-222) implementation will not marshal null values. You could change totalNumofTickets field/property to an Integer and have the value null when you don’t want to marshal it.

public class Ticket
    extends ActionType {

    @XmlElementWrapper(name = "Tickets")
    @XmlElement(name = "Ticket")
    protected List<Ticket> tickets;

    @XmlElement(name = "TotalNumOfTickets")
    protected Integer totalNumofTickets;

    public Integer getTotalNumofTickets() {
        return totalNumofTickets;
    }

    public void setTotalNumofTickets(Integer totalNumoftokens) {
        this.totalNumofTickets = totalNumoftickets;
    }

}

For More Information

• http://blog.bdoughan.com/2012/04/binding-to-json-xml-handling-null.html