jaxb entity print out as xml

Question

I have a class, let's call it User annotated with @XmlRootElement, with some properties (name, surname etc).

I use this class for REST operations, as application/xml.

The client will POST User class so i want to keep the values in the log.

Is there any method in jaxb to prints out this object as xml?

For instance:

log.info("Customers sent: "+user.whichMethod());

should produce this output:

Customer sent: 

<user> <name>cristi</name> <surname>kevin</surname> </user>

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can make this as a common method accessible by your endpoints.

public String toXml(JAXBElement element) {
    try {
        JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(element.getValue().getClass());  
        Marshaller marshaller = jc.createMarshaller();  
        marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE);  

        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        marshaller.marshal(element, baos);
        return baos.toString();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }      
    return "";
}

Answer 2

Found:)

public void toXml() {
    try {
        JAXBContext ctx = JAXBContext.newInstance(User.class);
        Marshaller marshaller = ctx.createMarshaller();
        marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE);
        marshaller.marshal(this, System.out);
    }
    catch (Exception
            e) {

              //catch exception 
    }
}

Call it like:

log.info("Customers sent: "+user.toXml());

Answer 3

Setting Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT may be not good for logging.

Instead suppress XML Prolog (or Declaration) with Marshaller.JAXB_FRAGMENT.

public static <J> String printXml(final J instance) throws JAXBException {
    return printXml(instance, instance.getClass());
}


public static <J> String printXml(final J instance,
                                  final Class<?>... classesToBeBound)
    throws JAXBException {

    final JAXBContext context = JAXBContext.newInstance(classesToBeBound);

    final ByteArrayOutputStream output = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

    final Marshaller marshaller = context.createMarshaller();
    marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FRAGMENT, Boolean.TRUE);
    marshaller.marshal(instance, output);
    // output.flush(); // Nasty IOException
    final String jaxbEncoding = (String) marshaller.getProperty(
        Marshaller.JAXB_ENCODING);

    try {
        return new String(output.toByteArray(), jaxbEncoding);
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException uee) {
        throw new RuntimeException(uee);
    }
}

will prints a single line like this.

<user><name>cristi</name><surname>kevin</surname></user>