SimpleXML parsing not working with @ElementList

Question

I'm struggling with this parsing for few hours so I thought maybe you will have insights. I got this XML structure:

<ItemSearchResponse>
     <OperationRequest>...</OperationRequest>
     <Items>
         <Request>
              <IsValid>true</IsValid>
         </Request>
         <TotalPages>16</TotalPages>
         <Item>
              <DetailPageURL>http://....</DetailPageURL>
         </Item>
          <Item>....</Item>
           ...
           <Item>....</Item>
     </Items>
</ItemSearchResponse>

My classes are:

Root(strict=false)
public class ItemSearchResponse {

    @ElementList
    List<Item> Items;
}

and:

@Root
public class Item {
    @Element(name="DetailPageURL", required = false)
    private String url;
}

when I run below code:

InputStream is = ... // stream from xml;
Serializer serializer = new Persister();
ItemSearchResponse response = serializer.read(ItemSearchResponse.class, is);

I get below exception:

org.simpleframework.xml.core.ElementException: Element 'IsValid' does not have a match in class club.mymedia.shoppingadvisor.amazon.xml.Item at line 1

It seems that the parsing of <Item> didn't work and it parsed <Request> instead. What should I change to make it work?

Answer 1

Try like this

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.List;
import org.simpleframework.xml.Element;
import org.simpleframework.xml.ElementList;
import org.simpleframework.xml.Root;
import org.simpleframework.xml.Serializer;
import org.simpleframework.xml.core.Persister;

class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Serializer serializer = new Persister();
        InputStream source = ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream("myxml.xml");
        ItemSearchResponse itemSearchResponse = serializer.read(ItemSearchResponse.class, source);
    }
}

@Root
class ItemSearchResponse {
    @Element(name = "Items")
    Items items;

    @Element(name = "OperationRequest")
    String operationRequest;
}

class Items {

    @Element(name = "Request")
    Request request;

    @Element(name = "TotalPages")
    int totalPages;

    @ElementList(inline = true, name = "Item")
    List<Item> itemList;
}

class Request {

    @Element(name = "IsValid")
    boolean isValid;
}

@Root(name = "Item")
class Item {

    @Element(name = "DetailPageURL", required = false)
    String url;
}

Don't forget the java naming convention to have variables starting with lowercase, also variable names should not start with underscore _ or dollar sign $ characters.

Also consider making the fields private and using getters for proper encapsulation as per OOP principles (just saying, not sure if you do)