Map XML to Java with multiple option for tag names

Question

I need to parse an XML file then map it to a Java object. So far, I do it with an annotated POJO :

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "", propOrder = {"title", "id", "eventList"})
@XmlRootElement(name = "MyClass")
public class MyClass {

  @XmlElement(name = "Title", required = true)
  protected String title;

  @XmlElement(name = "Id", required = false)
  protected String id;

  @XmlElement(name = "EventList", required = true)
  protected EventList eventList;
}

Then unmarshall it with JAXB :

MyClass myObj = (MyClass) unmarshaller.unmarshal(new StreamSource(fis))

Problem : Sometimes, my customer send files with slightly different tag names (for example, Eventlist instead of EventList )

Is there an option to allow both names for a tag? Up to now, I solve this problem by giving 2 attributes in the POJO :

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "", propOrder = {"title", "id", "eventList"})
@XmlRootElement(name = "MyClass")
public class MyClass {

  @XmlElement(name = "Title", required = true)
  protected String title;

  @XmlElement(name = "Id", required = false)
  protected String id;

  @XmlElement(name = "EventList", required = false)
  protected EventList eventList;

  @XmlElement(name = "Eventlist", required = false)
  protected EventList eventlist;
}

This is hard to maintain and forbids me to use the 'required' attribute. Do you have a better solution?

Answer 1

I am not sure there is an option to add multiple names, but what you can do is:

make the fields private and add getters and setters for them. You can make 2 getters and setters for the eventlist-field and annotate them with different names. Since this field is not required, as I see, there will be no problem.

Although.. as I see now, the problem is actually solved. See here: JAXB: unmarshalling xml with multiple names for the same element