Tai-Wei Lin's article "JavaTM Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB): A Primer" introduces developers to the basics of JAXB Early Access Implementation v 1.0. Lin provides brief explanations on how to create simple binding codes using the API and tools. Also discussed are a few situations where JAXB shows its strengths.

JAXB provides an API and tool that allows automatic two-way mapping between XML documents and JavaTM technology objects. With a given Document Type Definition (DTD) and a schema definition, the JAXB compiler can generate a set of JavaTM Foundation Classes that allow developers to build applications that can read, manipulate and recreate XML documents without writing any logic to process XML elements. The generated codes provide an abstraction layer by exposing a public interface that allows access to the XML data without any specific knowledge of the underlying data structure. In addition to DTD support, future versions of JAXB will add support for other schema languages, such as the W3C XML Schema. These features enable the JAXB to provide many benefits for the developers, which are further explained in the next section.

Lin also discusses the benefits and uses of JAXB, such as manipulating data in memory and working with valid data that conforms with DTD and binding schema.

Also covered are the Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) and the options it provides developers. Different features that JAXB and JAXP offer can empower developers to have the option to choose the best API to fit their needs.

Lin provides step-by-step instruction as a jump start on the basics of using the JAXB API. An implementation of the JAXB API can be downloaded from the official JAXB page.

There are examples and code samples available online:

• Code Sample 1: Sample XML for the price list example
• Code Sample 2: A simple DTD for item list example: item.dtd
• Code Sample 3: A minimal binding schema: item.xjs

Other topics include:

• Generate Processing Codes
• Unmarshal from an XML Document
• Instantiation
• Work with Data
• Validation
• Marshal to a XML document

For additional technical details and code samples:

http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/xml/jaxb

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