Reviews : Converting XML to JavaBeans with XMLBeans :

Before we start coding the first program we'll need to add webapp.jar and the xbean.jar file to our classpath. Our code starts out like this:

Listing 2-1. The FirstTry class

package dk.hansen.playground;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import com.bea.xml.XmlException;

import noNamespace.WebAppDocument;
import noNamespace.WebAppDocument.WebApp;

public class FirstTry {

  public static void main(String[] args) 
    throws XmlException, IOException {

    File file = new File(args[0]);
    WebAppDocument webappDoc =
    WebAppDocument.Factory.parse(file);

    WebApp webapp = webappDoc.getWebApp();
    . . .

  }
}

The program takes the name of the web.xml file as a parameter, and from this name we create a File instance. To parse the file we use the static parse method in a class named after our root element, WebApp. This'll give us our first object--a "document" instance. The document contains our XML data, and we get a handle to this by using the getWebApp method. The WebApp class has these getters:

The mapping from the XML element name to the method name is obvious. If an element can be repeated the getter method name has an "Array" appended to it.

It's now rather simple to continue with the coding:

Listing 2-2. The FirstTry class

    . . .
    System.out.println("Servlets:");

    Servlet[] servlet = webapp.getServletArray();
    for (int i = 0; i < servlet.length; i++) {
      System.out.println(" Name/class: "  
        + servlet[i].getServletName() + "/" 
        + servlet[i].getServletClass());
      InitParam[] init = servlet[i].getInitParamArray();
      System.out.println(" Init parameters:");
      for (int j = 0; j < init.length; j++) {
        System.out.println(" Name/value: " + 
          init[j].getParamName() + "/" 
          + init[j].getParamValue());
      }
      BigInteger load = servlet[i].getLoadOnStartup();
      if (load != null) {
        System.out.println(" Load on startup: " + load);
      }
    }

    System.out.println("Servlet Mappings:");
    ServletMapping[] mapping = webapp.getServletMappingArray();
    for (int j = 0; j < mapping.length; j++) {
      System.out.println(" Name/URL: " 
        + mapping[j].getServletName() + "/" 
        + mapping[j].getUrlPattern());
    }

    System.out.println("Welcome File List:");

    WelcomeFileList fileList = webapp.getWelcomeFileList();
    String[] s = fileList.getWelcomeFileArray();
    for (int i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
      System.out.println(" Filename: " + s[i]);
    }

    System.out.println("Taglibs:");

    Taglib[] tags = webapp.getTaglibArray(); 
    for (int j = 0; j < tags.length; j++) {
      System.out.println(" URI/location: " 
        + tags[j].getTaglibUri() + "/" 
        + tags[j].getTaglibLocation());
    }
  }

The complete program can viewed here and may be downloaded from the resources section at the end of the article.

If we run the program with web-struts-blank.xml as argument we'll get this listed:

*** Data in web-struts-blank.xml
Servlets:
  Name/class: action/org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet
  Init parameters:
    Name/value: config//WEB-INF/struts-config.xml
    Name/value: debug/2
    Name/value: detail/2
  Load on startup: 2
Servlet Mappings:
  Name/URL: action/*.do
Welcome File List:
  Filename: index.jsp
Taglibs:
  URI/location: /tags/struts-bean//WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld
  URI/location: /tags/struts-html//WEB-INF/struts-html.tld
  URI/location: /tags/struts-logic//WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld
  URI/location: /tags/struts-nested//WEB-INF/struts-nested.tld
  URI/location: /tags/struts-tiles//WEB-INF/struts-tiles.tld

If you compare this output with the output shown in the article about Castor you'll see that they're identical, which they should be!

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