Bootstrapping from EclipseLink Metadata (OXM)

If you would like to have more control over how your DynamicEntities will be mapped to XML, you can instead bootstrap from an EclipseLink OXM Metadata file. Using this approach, you can take advantage of EclipseLink's robust mappings framework and customize how each complex type in XML maps to its Java counterpart. The following API on DynamicJAXBContextFactory can be used to bootstrap from an OXM file:

Example 9-11 Creating a DynamicJAXBContext

/**
 * Create a <tt>DynamicJAXBContext</tt>, using an EclipseLink OXM file as the metadata source.
 *
 * @param classLoader
 *      The application's current class loader, which will be used to first lookup classes to
 *      see if they exist before new <tt>DynamicTypes</tt> are generated. Can be <tt>null</tt>,
 *      in which case <tt>Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()</tt> will be used.
 * @param properties
 *      Map of properties to use when creating a new <tt>DynamicJAXBContext</tt>.  This map must
 *      contain a key of JAXBContext.ECLIPSELINK_OXM_XML_KEY, with a value of... (see below)
 *
 * @return
 *      A new instance of <tt>DynamicJAXBContext</tt>.
 *
 * @throws JAXBException
 *      if an error was encountered while creating the <tt>DynamicJAXBContext</tt>.
 */
public static DynamicJAXBContext createContextFromOXM(ClassLoader classLoader, Map<String, ?> properties) throws JAXBException {

Links to the actual OXM files are passed in via the properties parameter, using a special key, JAXBContextProperties.OXM_METADATA_SOURCE. The value of this key will be a handle to the OXM metadata file, in the form of one of the following:

java.io.File
java.io.InputStream
java.io.Reader
java.net.URL
javax.xml.stream.XMLEventReader
javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamReader
javax.xml.transform.Source
org.w3c.dom.Node
org.xml.sax.InputSource

Lists of the above inputs are acceptable as well, to bootstrap from multiple OXM files. For more information, see the documentation on the DynamicJAXBContextFactory class.

In the following example, we will obtain our OXM file as a resource from our ClassLoader, and use the resulting InputStream to bootstrap a DynamicJAXBContext:

InputStream iStream = myClassLoader.getResourceAsStream("example/resources/eclipselink/eclipselink-oxm.xml");
 
Map<String, Object> properties = new HashMap<String, Object>();
properties.put(JAXBContextProperties.OXM_METADATA_SOURCE, iStream);
 
DynamicJAXBContext jaxbContext = DynamicJAXBContextFactory.createContextFromOXM(myClassLoader, properties);

Example

Using the sample OXM in Example 9-12, we will show an example of how to create and marshall a new object using Dynamic MOXy. It is important to note the type attributes. Because there is no underlying Java class, the types of each property must be explicitly specified.

Example 9-12 Sample XML Schema

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<xml-bindings xmlns="http://www.eclipse.org/eclipselink/xsds/persistence/oxm" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" package-name="example">
 
    <java-types>
        <java-type name="Customer">
            <xml-root-element name="customer"/>
            <java-attributes>
                <xml-element java-attribute="firstName" type="java.lang.String"/>
                <xml-element java-attribute="lastName" type="java.lang.String"/>
                <xml-element java-attribute="address" type="example.Address"/>
            </java-attributes>
        </java-type>
 
        <java-type name="Address">
            <java-attributes>
                <xml-element java-attribute="street" type="java.lang.String"/>
                <xml-element java-attribute="city" type="java.lang.String"/>
                <xml-element java-attribute="province" type="java.lang.String"/>
                <xml-element java-attribute="postalCode" type="java.lang.String"/>
            </java-attributes>
        </java-type>
    </java-types>
 
</xml-bindings>

The code in Example 9-13 demonstrates:

Passing the OXM file to DynamicJAXBContextFactory to create a DynamicJAXBContext
Creating new DynamicEntities and setting their properties
Creating a JAXBMarshaller and marshalling the Java objects to XML

Example 9-13 Sample Application Code

InputStream iStream = myClassLoader.getResourceAsStream("example/resources/eclipselink/eclipselink-oxm.xml");
 
Map<String, Object> properties = new HashMap<String, Object>();
properties.put(JAXBContextProperties.OXM_METADATA_SOURCE, iStream);
 
DynamicJAXBContext jaxbContext = DynamicJAXBContextFactory.createContextFromOXM(myClassLoader, properties);
 
DynamicEntity newCustomer = dContext.newDynamicEntity("example.Customer");
newCustomer.set("firstName", "George");
newCustomer.set("lastName", "Jones");
 
DynamicEntity newAddress = dContext.newDynamicEntity("example.Address");
newAddress.set("street", "227 Main St.");
newAddress.set("city", "Toronto");
newAddress.set("province", "Ontario");
newAddress.set("postalCode", "M5V1E6");
 
newCustomer.set("address", newAddress);
 
dContext.createMarshaller().marshal(newCustomer, System.out