Xstream isn't attaching an alias for the field

Question

I've defined my xstream like so:

public static final String listToXMLTree(List<?> list, 
         Class<?> domainClass, Converter evtConverter ) {
    String xml = "";
    StringBuffer buff = new StringBuffer(1000);
    buff.append("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='iso-8859-1'?>");

    XStream xstream = new XStream(new DomDriver());
    if (list != null && list.size() > 0) {

        xstream.registerConverter(evtConverter);

        xstream.alias("rows", List.class);
        xstream.alias("row", Event.class );
        xstream.aliasField("child", Event.class, "hasChildren");

        xml = xstream.toXML(list);
    } else {
        buff.append("<rows/>");
    }
    xml = buff.append(xml).toString();
    System.out.println(xml);

    return xml;
}

But the xml that pops out doesn't have any alias for the "hasChildren" variable - why so? The xml looks like this:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='iso-8859-1'?>
<rows>
  <row id="Puerto Rico692014-04-30 00:00:00.02014-07-29 00:00:00.0" xmlkids="1">
    <cell></cell>
    <cell>Puerto Rico</cell>
    <cell>103415</cell>
  </row>
</rows>

EDIT

This is the event class that I have - (on a seperate note I tried using the XStream aliases and removed the code above that creates them manually but it didn't work either):

public class Event 
{
// Event parameters
private String region;
private boolean hasChildren;

public boolean isHasChildren() {
    return hasChildren;
}
public void setHasChildren(boolean hasChildren) {
    this.hasChildren = hasChildren;
}
public String getRegion() {
    return region;
}
public void setRegion(String region) {
    this.region = region;
}

}

The evtConverter is a converter that maps the xml that Xstream spits out onto a DHTMLx grid.

Thanks

Answer 1

Credit for this answer goes to Vertex - the converter needed to be added after the aliases in order to work properly - I actually refactored my answer and have the object making use of the Xstream annotations instead of defining them in the method. Here's the code:

/**
 * Method to convert list objects to XML using XStream API.
 * <p>
 * 
 * @param list
 * @param domainClass
 * @param columnIds
 */
public static final String listToXML(List<?> list, Class<?> domainClass,
        Converter converter) {
    String xml = "";
    StringBuffer buff = new StringBuffer(1000);
    buff.append("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>");

    XStream xstream = new XStream(new DomDriver());
    if (list != null && list.size() > 0) {

        xstream.alias("rows", List.class);

        xstream.processAnnotations(domainClass);
        xstream.registerConverter(converter);

        xml = xstream.toXML(list);
    } else {
        buff.append("<rows/>");
    }
    xml = buff.append(xml).toString();  
    return xml;

}