Hold on pardner! Just because you CAN pass an XML file as a String doesn't mean
you should! In fact, I would consider this to be a REALLY BAD idea...
Think about it this way -- an EJB call is a potentially remote call. The very idea of taking an XML string (which represents object data) and passing it into an EJB to be parsed is pretty outrageous -- why incur all of that parameter passing overhead by passing all that extra stuff over the network?
Instead, I tend to lean STRONGLY towards doing all of the XML parsing on the other side of the remote interface (in the client, be it a
servlet,
Java application, or Message Driven Bean) and then creating a Serializable Java object (a Value Object) to hold the results and then passing that to the EJB. It fits better with the EJB architecture, and will usually be significantly faster.
Kyle
