JAXB use String as it is - jaxb

Question

I use REST and i was wondering if i can tell jaxb to insert a string field "as-it-is" into the outgoing xml.
Certainly i count unpack it before returning, but i would like to save this step.
#XmlRootElement(name="unnestedResponse")
public class Response{
#Insert annotation here ;-)
private String alreadyXml;
private int otherDate; ...
}
Is there a possability to tell JAXB to just use the String as it is without escapting? I want that the client does not have to parse my response and then parse this field.
greetings,
m

Answer 1

You can use the #XmlAnyElement and specify a DomHandler to keep a portion of the XML document as a String.
Customer
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.*;
#XmlRootElement
public class Customer {
private String bio;
#XmlAnyElement(BioHandler.class)
public String getBio() {
return bio;
}
public void setBio(String bio) {
this.bio = bio;
}
}
BioHandler
import java.io.*;
import javax.xml.bind.ValidationEventHandler;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.DomHandler;
import javax.xml.transform.Source;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.*;
public class BioHandler implements DomHandler<String, StreamResult> {
private static final String BIO_START_TAG = "<bio>";
private static final String BIO_END_TAG = "</bio>";
private StringWriter xmlWriter = new StringWriter();
public StreamResult createUnmarshaller(ValidationEventHandler errorHandler) {
return new StreamResult(xmlWriter);
}
public String getElement(StreamResult rt) {
String xml = rt.getWriter().toString();
int beginIndex = xml.indexOf(BIO_START_TAG) + BIO_START_TAG.length();
int endIndex = xml.indexOf(BIO_END_TAG);
return xml.substring(beginIndex, endIndex);
}
public Source marshal(String n, ValidationEventHandler errorHandler) {
try {
String xml = BIO_START_TAG + n.trim() + BIO_END_TAG;
StringReader xmlReader = new StringReader(xml);
return new StreamSource(xmlReader);
} catch(Exception e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
}
}
For More Information
http://blog.bdoughan.com/2011/04/xmlanyelement-and-non-dom-properties.html

Answer 2

Following bdoughan's answer did not work for me as I encountered errors during marshalling when the text contained the '& character (e.g. in URLs or when using HTML entities such as e.g. " ").
I was able to resolve this by changing the custom DomHandler's marshal method to
public Source marshal(String et, ValidationEventHandler veh) {
Node node = new SimpleTextNode(et);
return new DOMSource(node);
}
where SimpleTextNode implements the Node interface as follows:
class SimpleTextNode implements Node {
String nodeValue = "";
#Override
public SimpleTextNode(String nodeValue) {
this.nodeValue = nodeValue;
}
#Override
public short getNodeType() {
return TEXT_NODE;
}
// the remaining methods of the Node interface are not needed during marshalling
// you can just use the code template of your IDE...
...
}
PS: I would have loved to leave this as a comment to bdoughan's answer, but unfortunately I have way too little reputation :-(