jackson xmlmapper dynamic attribute names

Question

I want to generate following xml:

 <word start="1556" end="1564" TestArticle="36" Chemical="7">Ammonium</word> 
 <word start="1566" end="1584" Endpoint="36" Chemical="7" >per-fluorobutyrate</word> 
 <word start="1585" end="1586" TestArticle="37" >(</word>

I am using following pojo, which takes care of start and end as they are fixed attribute names, but I have "testArticle", "Endpoint", "Chemcial", etc which are dynamic in nature as well as there value, which I am not sure how to handle.

public class WordPOJO {

@JacksonXmlProperty(isAttribute = true)
String start;
@JacksonXmlProperty(isAttribute = true)
String end;
@JacksonXmlText
String str;

// not sure if this is the way to do it, but it not outputing in desired format
@XmlAnyElement(lax = true)
List<String> entityList;


public String getStart() {
    return start;
}
public void setStart(String span) {
    this.start = span;
}

public String getEnd() {
    return end;
}
public void setEnd(String span) {
    this.end = span;
}

public List<String> getEntityList()
{
    return entityList;
}

public void setEntityList(List<String> entityList)
{
    this.entityList = entityList;
}
 
//@JacksonXmlElementWrapper(useWrapping = false)
//@JacksonXmlProperty(localName = "word")
public String getStr() {
    return str;
}
public void setStr(String str) {
    this.str = str;
}
}
                

Answer 1

If you know the XML attribute names TestArticle , Chemical and Endpoint in adavance, then you can represent these as additional properties in your WordPOJO Java class:

@JacksonXmlProperty(isAttribute = true, localName = "TestArticle")
String testArticle;

@JacksonXmlProperty(isAttribute = true, localName = "Chemical")
String chemical;

@JacksonXmlProperty(isAttribute = true, localName = "Endpoint")
String endpoint;

// Getters and setters (omitted here for brevity)

Notice that you also need to explicitly specify the XML names by localName = "..." ) to match your XML content. (See also the javadoc of @JacksonXmlProperty .) If you would not do this, then Jackson would implicitly pick up XML names derived from your Java property names ( testArticle , chemical , endpoint ) which would not match your actual XML content.

---

If the XML attributes are truly dynamic and you don't know them in advance, then you will need to use @JsonAnyGetter and @JsonAnySetter . See the javadoc of @JsonAnyGetter and JsonAnySetter .

Don't be irritated by Json in the annotation names. Jackson can handle JSON and XML and many more formats. For JSON you use ObjectMapper . And for XML you use XmlMapper .

Map<String, Object> otherProperties = new HashMap<>();

@JsonAnySetter
public void setOtherProperty(String name, String value) {
    otherProperties.put(name, value);
}

@JsonAnyGetter
public Map<String, Object>  getOtherProperties() {
    return otherProperties;
}