JAXB getting Object "" is found in an IDREF property but this object doesnt have an ID

Question

Here is a test case using a file from SCORM for imsmanifest,xml. This XML has been in use for about 5 or more years, and being a standard I don't want to change it unless required to get this to work.

You can find the xsd file here

The error occurs between <organizations default="CYBER4.ORG"> and <organization identifier="CYBER4.ORG">

In my project, this is the entry from my pom.xml for my jaxb version

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.2.11</version>
</dependency>

to generate the Java code I ran (this is the install of xjc for Ubuntu 14.04)

$ xjc -version
xjc 2.2.4-2
$ xjc -verbose -p org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp imscp_v1p2.xsd

The output generates (amongst other things)

public class OrganizationsType {

    @XmlAttribute(name = "default")
    @XmlIDREF
    @XmlSchemaType(name = "IDREF")
    protected Object _default;

}

and

public class OrganizationType {

    @XmlAttribute(name = "identifier", required = true)
    @XmlJavaTypeAdapter(CollapsedStringAdapter.class)
    @XmlID
    @XmlSchemaType(name = "ID")
    protected String identifier;

}

This is the test code

package org.cyber4.scorm2004.build;

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;

import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.ManifestMetadataType;
import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.ManifestType;
import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.ObjectFactory;
import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.OrganizationType;
import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.OrganizationsType;
import org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp.ResourcesType;

//import org.slf4j.Logger;
//import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

public class TestSCORMBuilder {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        try {

            ObjectFactory objectFactory = new ObjectFactory(); 

            /*
             *  <metadata />
             */
            ManifestMetadataType metadataType = objectFactory.createManifestMetadataType();

            /*
             *  <organizations default="CYBER4.ORG">
             *      <organization identifier="CYBER4.ORG" /> 
             *  </organizations>
             */

            // https://java.net/jira/browse/JAXB-872
            OrganizationsType organizationsType = objectFactory.createOrganizationsType();
            organizationsType.setDefault("CYBER4.ORG");

            OrganizationType organizationType = objectFactory.createOrganizationType();
            organizationType.setIdentifier("CYBER4.ORG");

            organizationsType.getOrganization().add(organizationType);

            /*
             * <resources />
             */
            ResourcesType resourcesType = objectFactory.createResourcesType();

            /*
             * <manifest>
             * <metadata/ >
             *  <organizations default="CYBER4.ORG">
             *      <organization identifier="CYBER4.ORG" /> 
             *  </organizations>
             * <resources />
             * <manifest>
             */

            ManifestType manifestType = objectFactory.createManifestType();

            manifestType.setMetadata(metadataType);
            manifestType.setOrganizations(organizationsType);
            manifestType.setResources(resourcesType);

            JAXBContext context = JAXBContext.newInstance("org.cyber4.scorm2004.xml.manifest.imscp");

            Marshaller marshaller = context.createMarshaller();

            marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
            marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_SCHEMA_LOCATION,
                    "http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 imscp_v1p1.xsd");

            marshaller.marshal(objectFactory.createManifest(manifestType), System.out);

        } catch (Exception exception) {
            exception.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

}

When I run the code I get this error

javax.xml.bind.MarshalException
- with linked exception:
[com.sun.istack.internal.SAXException2: Object "CYBER4.ORG" is found in an IDREF property but this object doesnt have an ID.]
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.write(MarshallerImpl.java:311)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.marshal(MarshallerImpl.java:236)
    at javax.xml.bind.helpers.AbstractMarshallerImpl.marshal(AbstractMarshallerImpl.java:95)
    at org.cyber4.scorm2004.build.TestSCORMBuilder.main(TestSCORMBuilder.java:73)
Caused by: com.sun.istack.internal.SAXException2: Object "CYBER4.ORG" is found in an IDREF property but this object doesnt have an ID.
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.reportError(XMLSerializer.java:237)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.errorMissingId(XMLSerializer.java:1045)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.reflect.TransducedAccessor$IDREFTransducedAccessorImpl.print(TransducedAccessor.java:275)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.reflect.TransducedAccessor$IDREFTransducedAccessorImpl.print(TransducedAccessor.java:254)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.property.AttributeProperty.serializeAttributes(AttributeProperty.java:86)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ClassBeanInfoImpl.serializeAttributes(ClassBeanInfoImpl.java:360)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsXsiType(XMLSerializer.java:678)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.property.SingleElementNodeProperty.serializeBody(SingleElementNodeProperty.java:143)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ClassBeanInfoImpl.serializeBody(ClassBeanInfoImpl.java:343)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsXsiType(XMLSerializer.java:685)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.property.SingleElementNodeProperty.serializeBody(SingleElementNodeProperty.java:143)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ElementBeanInfoImpl$1.serializeBody(ElementBeanInfoImpl.java:145)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ElementBeanInfoImpl$1.serializeBody(ElementBeanInfoImpl.java:115)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ElementBeanInfoImpl.serializeBody(ElementBeanInfoImpl.java:317)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ElementBeanInfoImpl.serializeRoot(ElementBeanInfoImpl.java:324)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.ElementBeanInfoImpl.serializeRoot(ElementBeanInfoImpl.java:60)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.XMLSerializer.childAsRoot(XMLSerializer.java:483)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.MarshallerImpl.write(MarshallerImpl.java:308)
    ... 3 more

If I comment out line 37

organizationsType.setDefault("CYBER4.ORG");

it generates this XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<manifest xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 imscp_v1p1.xsd">
    <metadata/>
    <organizations>
        <organization identifier="CYBER4.ORG"/>
    </organizations>
    <resources/>
</manifest>

but it's missing the

 default="CYBER4.ORG"

in <organizations> which is required for imsmanifest.xml to be valid.

This looks like this bug but I want to be sure I haven't missed anything.

Answer 1

default should not contain the id of the object you want to reference, but an object with the same id than the object you want to reference.

Try to replace :

organizationsType.setDefault("CYBER4.ORG");    

with :

OrganizationType o = new OrganizationType()   
o.setIdentifier("CYBER4.ORG");    
organizationsType.setDefault(o);    

If organizationType has already been set you can maybe also try :

organizationsType.setDefault(organizationType);