How do you customize how JAXB generates plural method names?

Question

We are using JAXB to generate Java classes and have encountered a few cases where generated plural method names are not correct. For example, where we expect getPhysicians we are getting getPhysicien. How would we customize how JAXB pluralizes specific methods?

The schema:

<xs:complexType name="physician">
    <xs:sequence>
       ...
    </xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

<xs:complexType name="physicianList">
    <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="Physician"
                    type="physician"
                    minOccurs="0"
                    maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
    </xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

The generated Java code:

...
public class PhysicianList {
...

    @XmlElement(name = "Physician")
    protected List<Physician> physicien;
    ...

    public List<Physician> getPhysicien() {
        if (physicien == null) {
            physicien = new ArrayList<Physician>();
        }
        return this.physicien;
    }

Update

This has been answered by Blaise. However, I prefer not mixing concerns such as JAXB customizations in an XML schema. So for those of you with the same preference, here is a JAXB binding file that achieves the same thing as what Blaise suggested, keeping JAXB customization out of the schema:

<jaxb:bindings xmlns:jaxb="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxb"
               xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
               version="2.0">

    <jaxb:bindings schemaLocation="myschema.xsd">
        <jaxb:bindings node="//xs:complexType[@name='physicianList']//xs:element[@name='Physician']">
            <jaxb:property name="physicians"/>
        </jaxb:bindings>
    </jaxb:bindings>

</jaxb:bindings>

It doesn't even spell physician correctly, but rather as physicien. Strange. — Hovercraft Full Of Eels
XJC actually bases it on the element name for lists, so you could have just called your element name physicians. BUT (and it is a big but...) if you do this, there is is still a quirk in that when you re-marshal the object using JAXB each element will have the plural name 'physicians'. Very odd. So that said, I have used your approach and it works all round. — Simon

bdoughan bdoughan · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-21T18:23:11

By default the following is generated for your schema fragment:

    import java.util.ArrayList;
    import java.util.List;
    import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
    import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
    import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
    import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlType;

    @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
    @XmlType(name = "physicianList", propOrder = {
        "physician"
    })
    public class PhysicianList {

        @XmlElement(name = "Physician")
        protected List<Physician> physician;

        public List<Physician> getPhysician() {
            if (physician == null) {
                physician = new ArrayList<Physician>();
            }
            return this.physician;
        }

    }

If you annotate your XML schema:

    <xs:schema
        xmlns:jaxb="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxb"
        xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
        jaxb:version="2.1">

        <xs:complexType name="physician">
            <xs:sequence>
            </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>

        <xs:complexType name="physicianList">
            <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element name="Physician"
                            type="physician"
                            minOccurs="0"
                            maxOccurs="unbounded">
                      <xs:annotation>
                          <xs:appinfo>
                              <jaxb:property name="physicians"/>
                          </xs:appinfo>
                      </xs:annotation>
                 </xs:element>
            </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>

    </xs:schema>

Then you can generate the desired class:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlType;

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "physicianList", propOrder = {
    "physicians"
})
public class PhysicianList {

    @XmlElement(name = "Physician")
    protected List<Physician> physicians;

    public List<Physician> getPhysicians() {
        if (physicians == null) {
            physicians = new ArrayList<Physician>();
        }
        return this.physicians;
    }

}

How do you customize how JAXB generates plural method names?

2 Answers