JAXB Java generating XML, Why lowercase?

Question

When I run this code:

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;

public class JavaToXMLDemo {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    JAXBContext context = JAXBContext.newInstance(Employee.class);

    Marshaller m = context.createMarshaller();
    m.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);

    Employee object = new Employee();
    object.setCode("CA");
    object.setName("Cath");
    object.setSalary(300);

    m.marshal(object, System.out);

  }
}

@XmlRootElement
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
class Employee {
  private String code;

  private String name;

  private int salary;

  public String getCode() {
    return code;
  }

  public void setCode(String code) {
    this.code = code;
  }

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
  }

  public int getSalary() {
    return salary;
  }

  public void setSalary(int population) {
    this.salary = population;
  }
}

I get

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<employee>
    <code>CA</code>
    <name>Cath</name>
    <salary>300</salary>
</employee>

Which is correct, so my question is why does it change the Employee to employee? Is it possible to make it print with uppercase E, instead of employee?

This is what I actually wanted to have:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Employee>
    <code>CA</code>
    <name>Cath</name>
    <salary>300</salary>
</Employee>

Thanks!

Answer 1

The behaviour you are seeing is the result of the standard JAXB (JSR-222) XML name to Java name conversion algorithm.

You can use the @XmlRootElement annotation to specify a name:

@XmlRootElement(name="Employee")
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
class Employee {
    ...
}

I'm the EclipseLink JAXB (MOXy) lead, and we have an extension that allows you to override the default name conversion algorithm that you may be interested in:

• http://blog.bdoughan.com/2011/05/overriding-jaxbs-name-mangling.html

Answer 2

For specific elements...

@XmlElement( name = "Code")
private String code;

For the object....

@XmlRootElement(name="Employee")
public class Employee{ ...