JAXB rename attribute

Question

I have some class with a terrible long name, which is transformed into XML with JAXB. Using @XmlRootElement(name="nicername") , I am able to rename the outer XML tag to <nicername> .

How do I rename individual attributes with ugly names of the class to some nice name too ?

Answer 1

You can use the @XmlAttribute and @XmlElement annotations to change the XML names. If you annotate the fields be sure to use the @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD) annotation on the class:

@XmlRootElement(name="nice-name")
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
public class UglyName {

    @XmlElement(name="nice-element-name")
    private String uglyElementName;

    @XmlAttribute(name="nice-attribute-name")
    private String uglyAttributeName;

}

Or you can annotate the properties:

@XmlRootElement(name="nice-name")
public class UglyName {

    private String uglyElementName;
    private String uglyAttributeName;

    @XmlElement(name="nice-element-name")
    public String getUglyElementName() {
         return uglyElementName;
    }

    public void setUglyElementName(String name) {
         this.uglyElementNamne = name;
    }

    @XmlAttribute(name="nice-attribute-name")
    public String getUglyAttributeName() {
         return uglyAttributeName;
    }

    public void setUglyAttributeName(String name) {
         this.uglyAttributeNamne = name;
    }

}

Answer 2

You can define alternate names for your object properties using:

• XMLAttribute annotation for attributes
• XMLElement annotations for elements

Answer 3

Both the @XmlAttribute and @XmlElement annotations can be remapped by name using identical syntax as the @XmlRootElement annotation. So, just attach the relevant annotations to each individual field/property you need remapped and provide an argument for "name".