How to unmarshal xml without mapping the root xml element?

Question

I want to unmarshal a xml file containing a collection of data, like this

 
      Jim
      Tom<         


        

Answer 1

You could use a StAX parser and do something like the following with any JAXB implementation (Metro, EclipseLink MOXy, Apache JaxMe, etc):

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamReader;

public class Demo {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        XMLInputFactory xif = XMLInputFactory.newFactory();

        FileInputStream xml = new FileInputStream("input.xml");
        XMLStreamReader xsr = xif.createXMLStreamReader(xml);
        xsr.nextTag(); // Advance to "Persons" tag 
        xsr.nextTag(); // Advance to "Person" tag

        JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(Person.class);
        Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jc.createUnmarshaller();
        List persons = new ArrayList();
        while(xsr.hasNext() && xsr.isStartElement()) {
            Person person = (Person) unmarshaller.unmarshal(xsr);
            persons.add(person);
            xsr.nextTag();
        }

        for(Person person : persons) {
            System.out.println(person.getName());
        }
    }

}

input.xml

    Jim
    Tom  

System Output

Jim
Tom

Person

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlValue;

@XmlRootElement(name="Person")
public class Person {

    private String name;

    @XmlValue
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

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

}