How to transform an XML document to Java objects

[bob morkos]

Need some insights on this, is there a tool that does this and I would like any examples on this topic. I would appreciate any help on this. Thanks.

[Peter den Haan]

The obvious answer is DOM (best represented by JAXP), which represents your XML document using a generic Java API. If you want your objects to closely represent the XML document, what about the Java API for XML binding (JAXB)? It compiles an XML schema into Java classes which will form a direct representation of your XML document.
- Peter

[bob morkos]

I have an xml file and I want to create a java object. Do you have a small example of JAXB which you can send me. Any small example will do?

[Sean MacLean]

You can also use JDOM. I believe it is in review by the java community process. At any rate, it makes it very easy to manipulate an xml file within a java program as a Document object. Something like this

import org.jdom.*;
import org.jdom.input.SAXBuilder;
import org.jdom.output.XMLOutputter;
        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        Document doc = builder.build( xmldoc );
        Element root = doc.getRootElement();
        Element parent = (Element) root.getChildren().get(0);
        parent.setAttribute( "id", "1" );
        etc.....
        FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream( outFile );
        XMLOutputter outPutter = new XMLOutputter( "  ",  
                                                   true, "UTF-8" );
        outPutter.setTextNormalize( true );
        outPutter.output( doc, out );

Hope this helps.
Sean

[Joe Nguyen]

"the Java API for XML binding (JAXB)? It compiles an XML schema into Java classes which will form a direct representation of your XML document."
Thanks Peter. Now, I don't need to write classes to map XML to java obj.