Can't deserialize a wrapped List with Jackson XmlMapper

Question

I'm trying to create a pair immutable POJOs to handle serialization and deserialization of XML that looks like the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Outer xmlns="http://example.com">
  <Foo>outer foo</Foo>
  <Inners>
    <Inner>
      <Bar>inner 1 bar</Bar>
      <Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz>
    </Inner>
    <Inner>
      <Bar>inner 2 bar</Bar>
      <Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz>
    </Inner>
  </Inners>
</Outer>

I need to be able to serialize and deserialize both an Outer containing a list of Inners and an Inner by itself.

I can create a serializer for this with no problem, but my deserializer fails with the exception com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Duplicate property 'Inners' for [simple type, class BrokenTest$Outer]

Here are the unit tests for the passing serialization and failing deserialization:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonCreator;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.XmlMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlElementWrapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlProperty;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlRootElement;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

import static org.testng.Assert.assertEquals;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertNotNull;

public class BrokenTest
{
    private static final String NAMESPACE = "http://example.com";

    @JacksonXmlRootElement(localName="Outer", namespace = NAMESPACE)
    public static class Outer
    {
        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Foo", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String foo;

        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Inner", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        @JacksonXmlElementWrapper(localName = "Inners", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final List<Inner> inners;

        @JsonCreator
        public Outer(
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Foo", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String foo,
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Inners", namespace = NAMESPACE) final List<Inner> inners)
        {
            this.foo = foo;
            this.inners = inners;
        }
    }

    @JacksonXmlRootElement(localName="Inner", namespace = NAMESPACE)
    public static class Inner
    {
        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Bar", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String bar;

        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Baz", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String baz;

        @JsonCreator
        public Inner(
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Bar", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String bar,
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Baz", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String baz)
        {
            this.bar = bar;
            this.baz = baz;
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void serializeInner() throws Exception
    {
        Inner inner = new Inner("inner bar", "inner baz");
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        String serialized = mapper.writeValueAsString(inner);
        assertEquals(serialized, "<Inner xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Bar>inner bar</Bar><Baz>inner baz</Baz></Inner>");
    }

    @Test
    public void deserializeInner() throws Exception
    {
        String serialized = "<Inner xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Bar>inner bar</Bar><Baz>inner baz</Baz></Inner>";
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        Inner inner = mapper.readValue(serialized, Inner.class);
        assertNotNull(inner);
        assertEquals("inner bar", inner.bar);
        assertEquals("inner baz", inner.baz);
    }

    @Test
    public void serializeOuter() throws Exception
    {
        Outer outer = new Outer("outer foo", Arrays.asList(new Inner("inner 1 bar", "inner 1 baz"), new Inner("inner 2 bar", "inner 2 baz")));
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        String serialized = mapper.writeValueAsString(outer);
        assertEquals(serialized, "<Outer xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Foo>outer foo</Foo><Inners><Inner><Bar>inner 1 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 1 baz</Baz></Inner><Inner><Bar>inner 2 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz></Inner></Inners></Outer>");
    }

    @Test
    public void deserializeOuter() throws Exception
    {
        String serialized = "<Outer xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Foo>outer foo</Foo><Inners><Inner><Bar>inner 1 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 1 baz</Baz></Inner><Inner><Bar>inner 2 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz></Inner></Inners></Outer>";
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        Outer outer = mapper.readValue(serialized, Outer.class); // fails
        assertNotNull(outer);
        assertEquals("outer foo", outer.foo);
        assertEquals(2, outer.inners.size());
        assertEquals("inner 1 bar", outer.inners.get(0).bar);
        assertEquals("inner 1 baz", outer.inners.get(0).baz);
        assertEquals("inner 2 bar", outer.inners.get(1).bar);
        assertEquals("inner 2 baz", outer.inners.get(1).baz);
    }
}

I can get a different exception (com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.UnrecognizedPropertyException: Unrecognized field "Inners" (class BrokenTest$Outer), not marked as ignorable (2 known properties: "Foo", "Inner"])) if I change the @JacksonXmlProperty annotation on Outer's constructor to use the localName "Inner" instead of "Inners".

Is there any way to create a pair of POJOs that will work for these four test cases?

Edit: This is using Jackson version 2.7.3

Answer 1

This is a known bug in Jackson's XML handling.

A work-around is to change the annotation on inners in the Outer constructor so the local name is something not in the XML document.

Here is an version of the unit tests that works:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonCreator;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.XmlMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlElementWrapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlProperty;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.annotation.JacksonXmlRootElement;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

import static org.testng.Assert.assertEquals;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertNotNull;

public class BrokenTest
{
    private static final String NAMESPACE = "http://example.com";

    @JacksonXmlRootElement(localName="Outer", namespace = NAMESPACE)
    public static class Outer
    {
        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Foo", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String foo;

        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Inner", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        @JacksonXmlElementWrapper(localName = "Inners", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final List<Inner> inners;

        @JsonCreator
        public Outer(
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Foo", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String foo,
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="XXX", namespace = NAMESPACE) final List<Inner> inners)
        {
            this.foo = foo;
            this.inners = inners;
        }
    }

    @JacksonXmlRootElement(localName="Inner", namespace = NAMESPACE)
    public static class Inner
    {
        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Bar", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String bar;

        @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Baz", namespace = NAMESPACE)
        public final String baz;

        @JsonCreator
        public Inner(
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Bar", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String bar,
                @JacksonXmlProperty(localName="Baz", namespace = NAMESPACE) final String baz)
        {
            this.bar = bar;
            this.baz = baz;
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void serializeInner() throws Exception
    {
        Inner inner = new Inner("inner bar", "inner baz");
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        String serialized = mapper.writeValueAsString(inner);
        assertEquals(serialized, "<Inner xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Bar>inner bar</Bar><Baz>inner baz</Baz></Inner>");
    }

    @Test
    public void deserializeInner() throws Exception
    {
        String serialized = "<Inner xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Bar>inner bar</Bar><Baz>inner baz</Baz></Inner>";
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        Inner inner = mapper.readValue(serialized, Inner.class);
        assertNotNull(inner);
        assertEquals("inner bar", inner.bar);
        assertEquals("inner baz", inner.baz);
    }

    @Test
    public void serializeOuter() throws Exception
    {
        Outer outer = new Outer("outer foo", Arrays.asList(new Inner("inner 1 bar", "inner 1 baz"), new Inner("inner 2 bar", "inner 2 baz")));
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        String serialized = mapper.writeValueAsString(outer);
        assertEquals(serialized, "<Outer xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Foo>outer foo</Foo><Inners><Inner><Bar>inner 1 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 1 baz</Baz></Inner><Inner><Bar>inner 2 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz></Inner></Inners></Outer>");
    }

    @Test
    public void deserializeOuter() throws Exception
    {
        String serialized = "<Outer xmlns=\"http://example.com\"><Foo>outer foo</Foo><Inners><Inner><Bar>inner 1 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 1 baz</Baz></Inner><Inner><Bar>inner 2 bar</Bar><Baz>inner 2 baz</Baz></Inner></Inners></Outer>";
        ObjectMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
        Outer outer = mapper.readValue(serialized, Outer.class); // fails
        assertNotNull(outer);
        assertEquals("outer foo", outer.foo);
        assertEquals(2, outer.inners.size());
        assertEquals("inner 1 bar", outer.inners.get(0).bar);
        assertEquals("inner 1 baz", outer.inners.get(0).baz);
        assertEquals("inner 2 bar", outer.inners.get(1).bar);
        assertEquals("inner 2 baz", outer.inners.get(1).baz);
    }
}