Java XML Binding (JAXB; formerly Java Architecture for XML Binding) is a software framework that allows Java EE developers to map Java classes to

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

representations. JAXB provides two main features: the ability to ''marshal'' Java

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

s into XML and the inverse, i.e. to ''unmarshal'' XML back into Java objects. In other words, JAXB allows storing and retrieving data in memory in any XML format, without the need to implement a specific set of XML loading and saving routines for the program's class structure. It is similar to xsd.exe and XmlSerializer in the

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

. JAXB is particularly useful when the specification is complex and changing. In such a case, regularly changing the

XML Schema An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constra ...

definitions to keep them synchronised with the Java definitions can be time consuming and error-prone. JAXB is one of the APIs in the Java EE platform (formerly Java EE), part of the

Java Web Services Development Pack The Java Web Services Development Pack (JWSDP) is a free software development kit (SDK) for developing Web Services, Web applications and Java applications with the newest technologies for Java. Oracle replaced JWSDP with GlassFish. All component ...

(JWSDP), and one of the foundations for WSIT. It was also part of the

Java SE Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for desktop and server environments. Java SE was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). The platform uses Ja ...

platform (in version Java SE 6-10). As of Java SE 11, JAXB was removed. For details, se
JEP 320
JAXB 1.0 was released in 2003, having been developed under the

Java Community Process The Java Community Process (JCP), established in 1998, is a formalized mechanism that allows interested parties to develop standard technical specifications for Java technology. Anyone can become a JCP Member by filling a form available at thJCP w ...

as JSR 31. In 2006 JAXB 2.0 was released under JSR 222 and Maintenance Release 2 released in December 2009.

Reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation o ...

s for these specifications were available under the CDDL open source license at

java.net java.net was a Java technology related community website. It also offered a web-based source code repository for Java projects. It was shut down in April 2017. History java.net was announced by Sun Microsystems during JavaOne 2003. In Januar ...

Usage

The tool "" can be used to convert

and other schema file types (as of Java 1.6,

RELAX NG In computing, RELAX NG (REgular LAnguage for XML Next Generation) is a schema language for XML—a RELAX NG schema specifies a pattern for the structure and content of an XML document. A RELAX NG schema is itself an XML document but RELAX NG also ...

, XML DTD, and

WSDL The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...

are supported experimentally) to class representations. Classes are marked up using

annotations An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information. It can be a note that includes a comment or explanation. Annotations are sometimes presented in the margin of book pages. For anno ...

from namespace, for example, and . XML list sequences are represented by attributes of type . Marshallers and Unmarshallers are created through an instance of JAXBContext. In addition, JAXB includes a "" tool that can essentially perform the inverse of "", creating an XML Schema from a set of annotated classes.

Default data type bindings

The table below lists the mappings of

(XSD) data types to Java data types in JAXB.

Versions

* Java SE 9: JAXB 2.3.0 (in module java.xml.bind; this module is marked as deprecated ) * Java SE 8: JAXB 2.2.8 * Java SE 7: JAXB 2.2.3 (JSR 222, maintenance release 2) * Java SE 6: JAXB 2.0 (JSR 222)

References

External links

* Reference Implementation on Project

GlassFish GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server project started by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now living at the Eclipse Foundation and supported by Payara, Oracle and Red Hat. The supported v ...

previous JAXB home page

original JAXB home page

A JAXB Tutorial
by Wolfgang Laun
JSR 222
(JAXB 2.0)
JSR 31
(JAXB 1.0)

JAXB chapter of the Java EE 5 Tutorial
JAXB Wizard

JAXB Tutorials

Articles