JAXB is not picking up #XmlJavaTypeAdapter - jaxb

Question

I have the following class that I need to serialize as XML:
#XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
public class Position {
#XmlElement(name = "Quantity", required = true)
private DecimalQuantity quantity;
...
}
I have put an XmlJavaTypeAdapter on the DecimalQuantity class because I want it to be serialized simply as a BigDecimal without the DecimalQuantity wrapper.
#XmlJavaTypeAdapter(DecimalQuantityAdapter.class)
#Embeddable
public class DecimalQuantity {
private BigDecimal value;
...
}
Here's the very simple DecimalQuantityAdapter class:
public class DecimalQuantityAdapter
extends XmlAdapter<BigDecimal, DecimalQuantity> {
public DecimalQuantity unmarshal(BigDecimal val) throws Exception {
return new DecimalQuantity(val);
}
public BigDecimal marshal(DecimalQuantity val) throws Exception {
return val.getValue();
}
}
I have a unit test that shows that the adapter is working correctly. The following Order object that has a DecimalQuantity gets serialized correctly (notice that this test class looks almost identical to the Position class above):
#XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
#XmlRootElement(name = "Order")
public class Order {
#XmlElement(name = "Quantity", required = true)
private DecimalQuantity quantity;
...
}
This gets serialized as shown below - no wrapper around the decimal number - life is good!
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Order>
<Quantity>10.2</Quantity>
</Order>
The trouble starts when I try to use DecimalQuantity in other maven projects. For example, the Position class shown at the beginning of this post is in a different maven project. The web service that uses the Position class is in yet another maven project. When the web service tries to deserialize DecimalQuantity, it does not know what DecimalQuantity is and is not able to pick up the DecimalQuantityAdapter. This is the error I get:
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException:
class org.archfirst.common.quantity.DecimalQuantity nor any of its super class is known to this context.
at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.JAXBContextImpl.getBeanInfo(JAXBContextImpl.java:594)
at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsXsiType(XMLSerializer.java:648)
... 53 more
I have event tried to add the #XmlJavaTypeAdapter annotation on the attribute itself, but JAXB does not pick it up. The only way to get rid of the exception is to put an #XmlSeeAlso({DecimalQuantity.class}) on the Position class itself. However, this disables the adapter and I get the following (undesired) serialization:
<Quantity xsi:type="ns2:decimalQuantity" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
Any idea where the problem is? I feel it has something to do with the visibility of JAXB annotations on DecimalQuantity and DecimalQuantityAdapter across packages/projects.
Thanks.
Naresh

Answer 1

Ok, I finally found the problem. My unit test was picking up the JAXB implementation in the Java runtime, whereas my real application (a web service) was picking up the JAXB implementation from GlassFish. Apparently the implementation bundled with GlassFish (2.2.1.1) cannot handle my use case. I proved it by forcing my unit test to use jaxb-impl-2.2.1.1.jar. Also it seems that the bug has been fixed in the latest JAXB implementation (2.2.3-1), but I am struggling to figure out how to replace GlassFish's implementation with this new version (see my post here).

Answer 2

Are you sure the problem is with the XmlJavaTypeAdapter for decimals, not the DecimalQuantity type. Because the exception you've posted is the one that happens when JAXB encounters a value of unknown class.
What happens if you omit the #XmlJavaTypeAdapter annotation? I know it probably can't work the way you intend, but what is the error message? Isn't it the same?
As you wrote the exception is gone when you added:
#XmlSeeAlso({DecimalQuantity.class})
I would leave the annotation in the code and try to find the reason why the adapter doesn't work.
Can you debug in the your XML adapter and/or add some trace output there, just to make sure the adapter really returns a non-empty String?