Does JAXB work under Java 5?

Question

Building with maven I get "package javax.xml.bind.annotation does not exist"

What do I need to make JAXB work with Java 5?

Answer 1

JAXB APIs are bundled in JDK1.6, but these are not available in JDK <1.6 (ex: JDK1.5).

I have a Java to XML code written in JDK1.6 and once I switched to JDK1.5, I got the following error:

*Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException
 - with linked exception:
[java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.ContextFactory]
...
Caused by: javax.xml.bind.JAXBException
 - with linked exception:
[java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.ContextFactory]*
...

JDK1.5 doesnt contain the JAXB APIs and therefore I applied the following fix: I used JDK1.5 and the following two JARS: jaxb-api-2.0.jar and jaxb-impl-2.0.jar in my classpath and the error was resolved.

I hope this helps. Another Reference: http://www.mkyong.com/java/jaxb-hello-world-example/

Answer 2

You can download the reference implementation (RI) from http://jaxb.dev.java.net/.

I can't advise you on how to make it work with maven though - more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me.

Java6 included a slightly modified version of the RI, but the RI itself works just fine with Java5.