jaxb delete list tag

Question

I need to marshall a java class to get a xml, but i don't know how to delete a tag inside the one generated.

I have a class with an object list with this form

@XmlRootElement(name = "Element")
public class Element {
    private List<Foo> foos;
    @XmlElementWrapper("fooList")
    public List<Foo> getfoos() {
        return foos;
    }
    public void setFoos(List<Foo> foos) {
        this.foos = foos;
    }
}

And the class Foo of the list is lie this:

@XmlRootElement
public class Foo {
    private String id;
    private String code;
    @XmlElement
    public String getId() {
        return id;
    }
    public void setId(String id) {
        this.id = id;
    }
    @XmlElement
    public String getCode() {
        return code;
    }
    public void setCode(String code) {
        this.code = code;
    }
}

When marshalling to get xml I get this:

<Element>
  <fooList>
      <foos>
          <string1>asd</string1>
          <string2>qwe</string2>
      </foos>
      <foos>
          <string1>poi</string1>
          <string2>lkj</string2>
      </foos>
  </fooList>
</Element>

But I want to get it without the tag foos, like this:

<Element>
  <fooList>
      <string1>asd</string1>
      <string2>qwe</string2>
      <string1>poi</string1>
      <string2>lkj</string2>
  </fooList>
</Element>

Can anyone help me? Thanks a lot!!

Answer 1

You could do something like this:

@XmlRootElement(name = "Element")
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
public class Element {

    @XmlElementWrapper(name = "fooList")
    @XmlElements({
            @XmlElement(name = "id", type = Id.class),
            @XmlElement(name = "code", type = Code.class),
    })
    private List<FooItem> foos;

    public List<FooItem> getfoos() {
        return foos;
    }
    public void setFoos(List<FooItem> foos) {
        this.foos = foos;
    }
}

and then Id and Code classes look similar:

public class Id implements FooItem {
    @XmlValue
    private String id;

    public Id() {}

    public Id(String id) {
        this.id = id;
    }
}

They are bounded by an interface that doesn't do much:

public interface FooItem {  }

This structure will allow you to marshal into xml as the one you specified you need.

The challenge with the class structure you had is that class Foo had 2 fields and @XmlValue can be applied only to one field per class. So having 2 fields "forces" them to stand for @XmlElement and they in turn have to be children of an xml element. This is why you had the "intermediate" foo elements in your xml for each Foo instance in your List.