Handling nested elements in JAXB

Question

I am wondering if it is possible to have JAXB not to create Java object for XML elements that serve as wrappers. For example, for XML of the following structure

<root>
    <wrapper>
        <entity/>
    </wrapper>
</root>

I do not want an object for <wrapper> to be created at all. So for a class like

class Root {
    private Entity entity;
}

the <entity> element should be unmarshalled directly into the entity field.

Is it possible to achieve with JAXB?

Answer 1

Although it requires extra coding, the desired unmarshalling is accomplished in the following way using a transient wrapper object:

@XmlRootElement(name = "root")
public class Root {

    private Entity entity;

    static class Entity {

    }

    static class EntityWrapper {
        @XmlElement(name = "entity")
        private Entity entity;

        public Entity getEntity() {
            return entity;
        }
    }

    @XmlElement(name = "wrapper")
    private void setEntity(EntityWrapper entityWrapper) {
        entity = entityWrapper.getEntity();
    }

}