writing JAXB binding classes

[J. Kevin Robbins]

There is no schema for the xml file that I'm processing with JAXB, so I have to write the binding classes. I found a good guide here, but I've run into a problem that I can't find addressed anywhere.

Here is a portion of the xml file. (actually, it's an Atom feed)

<cap:event>Heat Advisory</cap:event>
<cap:effective>2012-07-26T05:36:00-04:00</cap:effective>
<cap:expires>2012-07-26T19:00:00-04:00</cap:expires>
<cap:status>Actual</cap:status>
<cap:msgType>Alert</cap:msgType>
<cap:category>Met</cap:category>
<cap:urgency>Expected</cap:urgency>
<cap:severity>Minor</cap:severity>
<cap:certainty>Likely</cap:certainty>

How do I handle the ":" in the element names? I can't define a variable with a name like that.

Maybe JAXB is not the way to handle an ATOM feed? Should I be going in a different direction? I've looked at ROME and Abdera, but they both use the URL class as input and I can't get through our proxy server using URL. I have to use the apache httpcomponents to authenticate to the proxy.

I only need about 3 of the elements from this feed. Should I just roll my own SAX reader to get the information that I need?