Question

I’m using RESTEasy 2.2.1.GA as my JAX-RS implementation to create a client to connect to a third party service provider. (Education.com’s REST API if it matters)

To make sure I haven’t missed an important implementation detail here are code samples:

Service Interface

@Path("/")
public interface SchoolSearch {

@GET
@Produces({MediaType.APPLICATION_XML})
Collection<SchoolType> getSchoolsByZipCode(@QueryParam("postalcode") int postalCode);
}

Calling Class

public class SimpleSchoolSearch {

public static final String SITE_URL = "http://api.education.com/service/service.php?f=schoolSearch&key=****&sn=sf&v=4";

SchoolSearch service = ProxyFactory.create(SchoolSearch.class, SITE_URL);

public Collection<SchoolType> getSchools() throws Exception {
    Collection<SchoolType> schools = new ArrayList<SchoolType>();
    Collection<SchoolType> response = service.getSchoolsByZipCode(35803);
    schools.addAll(response);
    return schools;

}
}

After setting up tests to make this call, I execute and see the following exception being thrown.

org.jboss.resteasy.plugins.providers.jaxb.JAXBUnmarshalException: Unable to find JAXBContext for media type: text/html;charset="UTF-8"

From reading the RESTEasy/JAX-RS documentation, as I understand it, when the response is returned to the client, prior to the unmarshaling of the data, a determination is made (Content Negotiation??) about which mechanism to use for unmarshalling. (I think we’re talking about a MessageBodyReader here but I’m unsure.) From looking at the body of the response, I see that what is returned is properly formatted XML, but the content negotiation (via HTTP header content-type is indeed text/html;charset =”UTF-8″) is not allowing the text to be parsed by JAXB.

I think that the implementation is behaving correctly, and it is the service that is in error, however, I don’t control the service, but would still like to consume it.

So that being said:

Am I correct in my understanding of why the exception is thrown?

How do I work around it?

Is there a simple one line annotation that can force JAXB to unmarshal the data, or will I need to implement a custom MessageBodyReader? (If that is even the correct class to implement).

Thanks!

Follow Up:

I just wanted to post the few changes I made to Eiden’s answer. I created a ClientExecutionInterceptor using his code and the information available at Resteasy ClientExecutionInterceptor documentation. My final class looks like

@Provider
@ClientInterceptor
public class SimpleInterceptor implements ClientExecutionInterceptor {

@Override
  public ClientResponse execute(ClientExecutionContext ctx) throws Exception {
      final ClientResponse response = ctx.proceed();
      response.getHeaders().putSingle(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);
      return response;
  }
}

The big difference is the addition of the @Provider and @ClientExecutionInterceptor annotations. This should insure that the interceptor is properly registered.

Also, just for completeness, I registered the Interceptor slightly differently for my tests. I used:

        providerFactory.registerProvider(SimpleInterceptor.class);

Answer 1

I’m sure there are several solutions to this problem, but I can only think of one.

Try so set the content-type using a ClientExecutionInterceptor:

public class Interceptor implements ClientExecutionInterceptor {

    @Override
    public ClientResponse<?> execute(ClientExecutionContext ctx) throws Exception {
        final ClientResponse<?> response = ctx.proceed();

        response
            .getHeaders()
            .putSingle(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);

        return response;
    }

}

public void getSchools() throws Exception {
    ResteasyProviderFactory.getInstance()
        .getClientExecutionInterceptorRegistry()
        .register( new Interceptor() );

    SchoolSearch service =
            ProxyFactory.create(SchoolSearch.class, SITE_URL);
}