| Custom marshaller/unmarshaller for java.util.Map
instances. This handles mapping hash maps with simple keys and complex values
to and from XML. There are a number of limitations, though. First off, the
key objects are marshalled as simple text values, using the
toString() method to convert them to String. When
unmarshalling the keys are always treated as String values. The
corresponding values can be any complex type with a <mapping> defined in
the binding. The name of the top-level element in the XML structure can be
configured in the binding definition, but the rest of the names are
predefined and set in the code (though the namespace configured for the
top-level element will be used with all the names).
The net effect is that the XML structure will always be of the form:
<map-name size="3">
<entry key="38193">
<customer state="WA" zip="98059">
<name first-name="John" last-name="Smith"/>
<street>12345 Happy Lane</street>
<city>Plunk</city>
</customer>
</entry>
<entry key="39122">
<customer state="WA" zip="98094">
<name first-name="Sally" last-name="Port"/>
<street>932 Easy Street</street>
<city>Fort Lewis</city>
</customer>
</entry>
<entry key="83132">
<customer state="WA" zip="98059">
<name first-name="Mary" last-name="Smith"/>
<street>12345 Happy Lane</street>
<city>Plunk</city>
</customer>
</entry>
</map-name>
where "map-name" is the configured top-level element name, the "size"
attribute is the number of pairs in the hash map, and the "entry" elements
are the actual entries in the hash map.
This is obviously not intended to handle all types of hash maps, but it
should be useful as written for many applications and easily customized to
handle other requirements.
author:
Dennis M. Sosnoski
version:
1.0 | 