Mapping Dates and Times

You can use the @XmlSchemaType annotation to customize the XML representation of date and time information. Additionally, EclipseLink MOXy supports the following types which are not covered in the JAXB specification (JSR-222):

java.sql.Date
java.sql.Time
java.sql.Timestamp

The following XML schema contains a date-of-birth element of type xsd:date:

Example 5-1 Sample XML Schema

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
   <xsd:element name="customer">
      <xsd:complexType>
         <xsd:sequence>
            <xsd:element name="date-of-birth" type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
         </xsd:sequence>
      </xsd:complexType>
   </xsd:element>
</xsd:schema>

Understanding the Generated Model

The JAXB XML Schema to Java compiler (XJC) can be used to generate a class model from the sample schema. For example:

> xjc -d output-dir -p example date.xsd

will generate the following Customer class:

Example 5-2 Sample Customer Class

package example;
 
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlSchemaType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlType;
import javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar;
 
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "", propOrder = {"dateOfBirth"})
@XmlRootElement(name = "customer")
public class Customer {
 
    @XmlElement(name = "date-of-birth")
    @XmlSchemaType(name = "date")
    protected XMLGregorianCalendar dateOfBirth;
 
    public XMLGregorianCalendar getDateOfBirth() {
        return dateOfBirth;
    }
 
    public void setDateOfBirth(XMLGregorianCalendar value) {
        this.dateOfBirth = value;
    }
 
}

Notice that:

The dateOfBirth property is of type javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar
The dateOfBirth property uses the @XmlSchemaType annotation

Some Java data types (like XMLGregorianCalendar) have multiple XML representations (such as xsd:date, xsd:time, or xsd:dateTime). Use @XmlSchemaType to select the appropriate representation.

Using a Different Date (or Calendar) Property

By default, the JAXB XML schema to Java compiler (XJC) generates a property of type XMLGregorianCalendar. However, you can easily change this to java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar, as shown in Example 5-3:

Example 5-3 Using java.util.Date

package blog.date;
 
import java.util.Date;
 
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlSchemaType;
 
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlRootElement(name = "customer")
public class Customer {
 
    @XmlElement(name = "date-of-birth")
    @XmlSchemaType(name = "date")
    protected Date dateOfBirth;
 
    public Date getDateOfBirth() {
        return dateOfBirth;
    }
 
    public void setDateOfBirth(Date value) {
        this.dateOfBirth = value;
    }
 
}