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## Chapter 22. JAXB providers

As required by the specification, RESTEasy JAX-RS includes support for (un)marshalling JAXB annotated classes. RESTEasy provides multiple JAXB Providers to address some subtle differences between classes generated by XJC and classes which are simply annotated with @XmlRootElement, or working with JAXBElement classes directly.

For the most part, developers using the JAX-RS API, the selection of which provider is invoked will be completely transparent. For developers wishing to access the providers directly (which most folks won't need to do), this document describes which provider is best suited for different configurations.

A JAXB Provider is selected by RESTEasy when a parameter or return type is an object that is annotated with JAXB annotations (such as @XmlRootEntity or @XmlType) or if the type is a JAXBElement. Additionally, the resource class or resource method will be annotated with either a @Consumes or @Produces annotation and contain one or more of the following values:

- text/*+xml
- application/*+xml
- application/*+fastinfoset
- application/*+json

RESTEasy will select a different provider based on the return type or parameter type used in the resource. This section describes how the selection process works.

@XmlRootEntity When a class is annotated with a @XmlRootElement annotation, RESTEasy will select the JAXBXmlRootElementProvider. This provider handles basic marshaling and unmarshalling of custom JAXB entities.

@XmlType Classes which have been generated by XJC will most likely not contain an @XmlRootEntity annotation. In order for these classes to marshalled, they must be wrapped within a JAXBElement instance. This is typically accomplished by invoking a method on the class which serves as the XmlRegistry and is named ObjectFactory.

The JAXBXmlTypeProvider provider is selected when the class is annotated with an XmlType annotation and not an XmlRootElement annotation.

This provider simplifies this task by attempting to locate the XmlRegistry for the target class. By default, a JAXB implementation will create a class called ObjectFactory and is located in the same package as the target class. When this class is located, it will contain a "create" method that takes the object instance as a parameter. For example, if the target type is called "Contact", then the ObjectFactory class will have a method:

public JAXBElement createContact(Contact value) {..

JAXBElement<?> If your resource works with the JAXBElement class directly, the RESTEasy runtime will select the JAXBElementProvider. This provider examines the ParameterizedType value of the JAXBElement in order to select the appropriate JAXBContext.

## 22.1. JAXB Decorators

Resteasy's JAXB providers have a pluggable way to decorate Marshaller and Unmarshaller instances. The way it works is that you can write an annotation that can trigger the decoration of a Marshaller or Unmarshaller. Your decorators can do things like set Marshaller or Unmarshaller properties, set up validation, stuff like that. Here's an example. Let's say we want to have an annotation that will trigger pretty-printing, nice formatting, of an XML document. If we were doing raw JAXB, we would set a property on the Marshaller of Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT. Let's write a Marshaller decorator.

First we define a annotation:

    import org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.Decorator;

    @Target({ElementType.TYPE, ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.PARAMETER, ElementType.FIELD})
    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
    @Decorator(processor = PrettyProcessor.class, target = Marshaller.class)
    public @interface Pretty {}

To get this to work, we must annotate our @Pretty annotation with a meta-annotation called @Decorator. The target() attribute must be the JAXB Marshaller class. The processor() attribute is a class we will write next.

    import org.jboss.resteasy.core.interception.DecoratorProcessor;
    import org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.DecorateTypes;

    import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;
    import javax.xml.bind.PropertyException;
    import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
    import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
    import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;

    /**
     * @author <a href="mailto:bill@burkecentral.com">Bill Burke</a>
     * @version $Revision: 1 $
     */
    @DecorateTypes({"text/*+xml", "application/*+xml"})
    public class PrettyProcessor implements DecoratorProcessor<Marshaller, Pretty>
    {
        public Marshaller decorate(Marshaller target, Pretty annotation,
                      Class type, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType)
        {
           target.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE);
        }
    }

The processor implementation must implement the DecoratorProcessor interface and should also be annotated with @DecorateTypes. This annotation specifies what media types the processor can be used with. Now that we've defined our annotation and our Processor, we can use it on our JAX-RS resource methods or JAXB types as follows:

    @GET
    @Pretty
    @Produces("application/xml")
    public SomeJAXBObject get() {...}

If you are confused, check the RESTEasy source code for the implementation of @XmlHeader

## 22.2. Pluggable JAXBContext's with ContextResolvers

You should not use this feature unless you know what you're doing.

Based on the class you are marshalling/unmarshalling, RESTEasy will, by default create and cache JAXBContext instances per class type. If you do not want RESTEasy to create JAXBContexts, you can plug-in your own by implementing an instance of javax.ws.rs.ext.ContextResolver

    public interface ContextResolver<T>
    {
        T getContext(Class<?> type);
    }

    @Provider
    @Produces("application/xml")
    public class MyJAXBContextResolver implements ContextResolver<JAXBContext>
    {
        JAXBContext getContext(Class<?> type)
        {
            if (type.equals(WhateverClassIsOverridedFor.class)) return JAXBContext.newInstance()...;
        }
    }

You must provide a @Produces annotation to specify the media type the context is meant for. You must also make sure to implement ContextResolver<JAXBContext>. This helps the runtime match to the correct context resolver. You must also annotate the ContextResolver class with @Provider.

There are multiple ways to make this ContextResolver available.

1. Return it as a class or instance from a javax.ws.rs.core.Application implementation
2. List it as a provider with resteasy.providers
3. Let RESTEasy automatically scan for it within your WAR file. See Configuration Guide
4. Manually add it via ResteasyProviderFactory.getInstance().registerProvider(Class) or registerProviderInstance(Object)

## 22.3. JAXB + XML provider

RESTEasy is required to provide JAXB provider support for XML. It has a few extra annotations that can help code your app.

### 22.3.1. @XmlHeader and @Stylesheet

Sometimes when outputting XML documents you may want to set an XML header. RESTEasy provides the @org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.jaxb.XmlHeader annotation for this. For example:

    @XmlRootElement
    public static class Thing
    {
        private String name;

        public String getName()
        {
            return name;
        }

        public void setName(String name)
        {
            this.name = name;
        }
    }

    @Path("/test")
    public static class TestService
    {
        @GET
        @Path("/header")
        @Produces("application/xml")
        @XmlHeader("<?xml-stylesheet type='text/xsl' href='${baseuri}foo.xsl' ?>")
        public Thing get()
        {
            Thing thing = new Thing();
            thing.setName("bill");
            return thing;
        }
    }

The @XmlHeader here forces the XML output to have an xml-stylesheet header. This header could also have been put on the Thing class to get the same result. See the javadocs for more details on how you can use substitution values provided by resteasy.

RESTEasy also has a convenience annotation for stylesheet headers. For example:

    @XmlRootElement
    public static class Thing
    {
        private String name;

        public String getName()
        {
            return name;
        }

        public void setName(String name)
        {
            this.name = name;
        }
    }

    @Path("/test")
    public static class TestService
    {
        @GET
        @Path("/stylesheet")
        @Produces("application/xml")
        @Stylesheet(type="text/css", href="${basepath}foo.xsl")
        @Junk
        public Thing getStyle()
        {
            Thing thing = new Thing();
            thing.setName("bill");
            return thing;
        }
    }

## 22.4. JAXB + JSON provider

RESTEasy allows you to marshall JAXB annotated POJOs to and from JSON. This provider wraps the Jackson2 library to accomplish this.

To use this integration with Jackson you need to import the resteasy-jackson2-provider Maven module.

For example, consider this JAXB class:

    @XmlRootElement(name = "book")
    public class Book
    {
        private String author;
        private String ISBN;
        private String title;

        public Book()
        {
        }

        public Book(String author, String ISBN, String title)
        {
            this.author = author;
            this.ISBN = ISBN;
            this.title = title;
        }

        @XmlElement
        public String getAuthor()
        {
            return author;
        }

        public void setAuthor(String author)
        {
        this.author = author;
        }

        @XmlElement
        public String getISBN()
        {
            return ISBN;
        }

        public void setISBN(String ISBN)
        {
            this.ISBN = ISBN;
        }

        @XmlAttribute
        public String getTitle()
        {
            return title;
        }

        public void setTitle(String title)
        {
            this.title = title;
        }
    }

And we can write a method to use the above entity:

    @Path("/test_json")
    @GET
    @Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
    public Book test_json() {
        Book book = new Book();
        book.setTitle("EJB 3.0");
        book.setAuthor("Bill Burke");
        book.setISBN("596529260");
        return book;
    }

Requesting from the above method, and we can see the default Jackson2 marshaller would return JSON that looked like this:

    $ http localhost:8080/dummy/test_json
    HTTP/1.1 200
    ...
    Content-Type: application/json

    {
    "ISBN": "596529260",
    "author": "Bill Burke",
    "title": "EJB 3.0"
    }

## 22.5. JAXB + FastinfoSet provider

RESTEasy supports the FastinfoSet mime type with JAXB annotated classes. Fast infoset documents are faster to serialize and parse, and smaller in size, than logically equivalent XML documents. Thus, fast infoset documents may be used whenever the size and processing time of XML documents is an issue. It is configured the same way the XML JAXB provider is so really no other documentation is needed here.

To use this integration with Fastinfoset you need to import the resteasy-fastinfoset-provider Maven module. Older versions of RESTEasy used to include this within the resteasy-jaxb-provider but we decided to modularize it more.

## 22.6. Arrays and Collections of JAXB Objects

RESTEasy will automatically marshal arrays, java.util.Set's, and java.util.List's of JAXB objects to and from XML, JSON, Fastinfoset (or any other new JAXB mapper Restasy comes up with).

    @XmlRootElement(name = "customer")
    @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
    public class Customer
    {
        @XmlElement
        private String name;

        public Customer()
        {
        }

        public Customer(String name)
        {
            this.name = name;
        }

        public String getName()
        {
            return name;
        }
    }

    @Path("/")
    public class MyResource
    {
        @PUT
        @Path("array")
        @Consumes("application/xml")
        public void putCustomers(Customer[] customers)
        {
            Assert.assertEquals("bill", customers[0].getName());
            Assert.assertEquals("monica", customers[1].getName());
        }

        @GET
        @Path("set")
        @Produces("application/xml")
        public Set<Customer> getCustomerSet()
        {
            HashSet<Customer> set = new HashSet<Customer>();
            set.add(new Customer("bill"));
            set.add(new Customer("monica"));

            return set;
        }

        @PUT
        @Path("list")
        @Consumes("application/xml")
        public void putCustomers(List<Customer> customers)
        {
            Assert.assertEquals("bill", customers.get(0).getName());
            Assert.assertEquals("monica", customers.get(1).getName());
        }
    }

The above resource can publish and receive JAXB objects. It is assumed that are wrapped in a collection element

    <collection>
        <customer><name>bill</name></customer>
        <customer><name>monica</name></customer>
    <collection>

You can change the namespace URI, namespace tag, and collection element name by using the @org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.jaxb.Wrapped annotation on a parameter or method

    @Target({ElementType.PARAMETER, ElementType.METHOD})
    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
    public @interface Wrapped
    {
        String element() default "collection";

        String namespace() default "http://jboss.org/resteasy";

        String prefix() default "resteasy";
    }

So, if we wanted to output this XML

    <foo:list xmlns:foo="http://foo.org">
        <customer><name>bill</name></customer>
        <customer><name>monica</name></customer>
    </foo:list>

We would use the @Wrapped annotation as follows:

    @GET
    @Path("list")
    @Produces("application/xml")
    @Wrapped(element="list", namespace="http://foo.org", prefix="foo")
    public List<Customer> getCustomerSet()
    {
        List<Customer> list = new ArrayList<Customer>();
        list.add(new Customer("bill"));
        list.add(new Customer("monica"));

        return list;
    }

### 22.6.1. Retrieving Collections on the client side

If you try to retrieve a `List` or `Set` of JAXB objects in the obvious way on the client side:

          Response response = request.get();
          List<Customer> list = response.readEntity(List.class);

the call to `readEntity()` will fail because it has no way of knowing the element type `Customer`. The trick is to use an instance of `javax.ws.rs.core.GenericType`:

          Response response = request.get();
          GenericType<List<Customer>> genericType = new GenericType<List<Customer>>() {};
          List<Customer> list = response.readEntity(genericType);

For more information about `GenericType`, please see its javadoc.

The same trick applies to retrieving a `Set`:

          Response response = request.get();
          GenericType<Set<Customer>> genericType = new GenericType<Set<Customer>>() {};
          Set<Customer> set = response.readEntity(genericType);

On the other hand, `GenericType` is not necessary to retrieve an array of JAXB objects:

          Response response = request.get();
          Customer[] array = response.readEntity(Customer[].class);

### 22.6.2. JSON and JAXB Collections/arrays

RESTEasy supports using collections with JSON. It encloses lists, sets, or arrays of returned JAXB objects within a simple JSON array. For example:

    @XmlRootElement
    @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
    public static class Foo
    {
        @XmlAttribute
        private String test;

        public Foo()
        {
        }

        public Foo(String test)
        {
            this.test = test;
        }

        public String getTest()
        {
            return test;
        }

        public void setTest(String test)
        {
            this.test = test;
        }
    }

This a List or array of this Foo class would be represented in JSON like this:

    [{"foo":{"@test":"bill"}},{"foo":{"@test":"monica}"}}]

It also expects this format for input

## 22.7. Maps of JAXB Objects

RESTEasy will automatically marshal maps of JAXB objects to and from XML, JSON, Fastinfoset (or any other new JAXB mapper Restasy comes up with). Your parameter or method return type must be a generic with a String as the key and the JAXB object's type.

    @XmlRootElement(namespace = "http://foo.com")
    public static class Foo
    {
        @XmlAttribute
        private String name;

        public Foo()
        {
        }

        public Foo(String name)
        {
            this.name = name;
        }

        public String getName()
        {
            return name;
        }
    }

    @Path("/map")
    public static class MyResource
    {
        @POST
        @Produces("application/xml")
        @Consumes("application/xml")
        public Map<String, Foo> post(Map<String, Foo> map)
        {
            Assert.assertEquals(2, map.size());
            Assert.assertNotNull(map.get("bill"));
            Assert.assertNotNull(map.get("monica"));
            Assert.assertEquals(map.get("bill").getName(), "bill");
            Assert.assertEquals(map.get("monica").getName(), "monica");
            return map;
        }
    }

The above resource can publish and receive JAXB objects within a map. By default, they are wrapped in a "map" element in the default namespace. Also, each "map" element has zero or more "entry" elements with a "key" attribute.

    <map>
        <entry key="bill" xmlns="http://foo.com">
            <foo name="bill"/>
        </entry>
        <entry key="monica" xmlns="http://foo.com">
            <foo name="monica"/>
        </entry>
    </map>

You can change the namespace URI, namespace prefix and map, entry, and key element and attribute names by using the @org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.jaxb.WrappedMap annotation on a parameter or method

    @Target({ElementType.PARAMETER, ElementType.METHOD})
    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
    public @interface WrappedMap
    {
        /**
         * map element name
         */
        String map() default "map";

        /**
         * entry element name *
         */
        String entry() default "entry";

        /**
         * entry's key attribute name
         */
        String key() default "key";

        String namespace() default "";

        String prefix() default "";
    }

So, if we wanted to output this XML

    <hashmap>
        <hashentry hashkey="bill" xmlns:foo="http://foo.com">
            <foo:foo name="bill"/>
        </hashentry>
    </map>

We would use the @WrappedMap annotation as follows:

    @Path("/map")
    public static class MyResource
    {
        @GET
        @Produces("application/xml")
        @WrappedMap(map="hashmap", entry="hashentry", key="hashkey")
        public Map<String, Foo> get()
        {
            ...
            return map;
        }
    }

### 22.7.1. Retrieving Maps on the client side

If you try to retrieve a `Map` of JAXB objects in the obvious way on the client side:

          Response response = request.get();
          Map<String, Customer> map = response.readEntity(Map.class);

the call to `readEntity()` will fail because it has no way of knowing the element type `Customer`. The trick is to use an instance of `javax.ws.rs.core.GenericType`:

          Response response = request.get();
          GenericType<Map<String, Customer> genericType = new GenericType<Map<String, Customer>>() {};
          Map<String, Customer> map = response.readEntity(genericType);

For more information about `GenericType`, please see its javadoc.

### 22.7.2. JSON and JAXB maps

RESTEasy supports using maps with JSON. It encloses maps returned JAXB objects within a simple JSON map. For example:

    @XmlRootElement
    @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
    public static class Foo
    {
        @XmlAttribute
        private String test;

        public Foo()
        {
        }

        public Foo(String test)
        {
            this.test = test;
        }

        public String getTest()
        {
            return test;
        }

        public void setTest(String test)
        {
            this.test = test;
        }
    }

This a List or array of this Foo class would be represented in JSON like this:

    { "entry1" : {"foo":{"@test":"bill"}}, "entry2" : {"foo":{"@test":"monica}"}}}

It also expects this format for input

## 22.8. Interfaces, Abstract Classes, and JAXB

Some objects models use abstract classes and interfaces heavily. Unfortunately, JAXB doesn't work with interfaces that are root elements and RESTEasy can't unmarshal parameters that are interfaces or raw abstract classes because it doesn't have enough information to create a JAXBContext. For example:

    public interface IFoo {}

    @XmlRootElement
    public class RealFoo implements IFoo {}

    @Path("/jaxb")
    public class MyResource {

        @PUT
        @Consumes("application/xml")
        public void put(IFoo foo) {...}
    }

In this example, you would get an error from RESTEasy of something like "Cannot find a MessageBodyReader for...". This is because RESTEasy does not know that implementations of IFoo are JAXB classes and doesn't know how to create a JAXBContext for it. As a workaround, RESTEasy allows you to use the JAXB annotation @XmlSeeAlso on the interface to correct the problem. (NOTE, this will not work with manual, hand-coded JAXB).

    @XmlSeeAlso(RealFoo.class)
    public interface IFoo {}

The extra @XmlSeeAlso on IFoo allows RESTEasy to create a JAXBContext that knows how to unmarshal RealFoo instances.

## 22.9. Configurating JAXB Marshalling

As a consumer of XML datasets, JAXB is subject to a form of attack known as the XXE (Xml eXternal Entity) Attack (http://www.securiteam.com/securitynews/6D0100A5PU.html), in which expanding an external entity causes an unsafe file to be loaded. Preventing the expansion of external entities is discussed in Section 21.4, “Configuring Document Marshalling”. The same parameter,

> resteasy.document.expand.entity.references

applies to JAXB unmarshallers as well.

Section 21.4, “Configuring Document Marshalling” also discusses the prohibition of DTDs and the imposition of limits on entity expansion and the number of attributes per element. The parameters

> resteasy.document.secure.disableDTDs

and

> resteasy.document.secure.processing.feature

discussed there, and their default values, also apply to the representation of JAXB objects.

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