Question

Just doing a little comparison with spring and jersey.

Curious if it is possible for a method to return both xml or json.

Maybe default to xml, but have an optional flag that will return json.

Possible?

Answer 1

You mention Jersey, so I assume you are referring to a REST implementation. Jersey will automatically serialize your content as XML and JSON if your resource is properly setup. You just have to indicate a wider range of media types for your @Produces annotations:

@GET
@Path("/somepath")
@Produces({MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON, MediaType.TEXT_XML})
public MyBean getData() ;

Where MyBean is an appropriately JAXB annotated POJO. With this resource endpoint definition a caller can specify what content type they want via the Accept: header:

GET http://www.example.com/somepath
Accept: text/xml