How to deal with JAXB ComplexType with MixedContent data?

Question

I got this XML structure:

  0.00
  
     17.5% No         


        

Answer 1

As you mentioned you need to add the mixed attribute to indicate that your type supports mixed content. Without this specified your XML content is invalid:

<xsd:complexType name="TaxDescriptionType" mixed="true">
    <xsd:sequence>
        <xsd:element name="ShortName" type="xsd:string" />
    </xsd:sequence>
    <xsd:attribute ref="xml:lang" />
</xsd:complexType>

The generated TaxDescriptionType class will have the following property. Essentially this means that all of the non-attribute content will be stored in a List. This is necessary because you need a mechanism that indicates where the text nodes are wrt the element content.

@XmlElementRef(name = "ShortName", namespace = "http://www.example.org/schema", type = JAXBElement.class)
@XmlMixed
protected List<Serializable> content;

You will populate this list with instances of String (representing text nodes) and JAXBElement (representing element content).

---

ALTERNATIVELY

Mixed content generally makes life more complicated than it needs to be. If possible I would recommend an alternate XML representation.

<Tax>
  <Money currency="USD">0.00</Money>
  <Description xml:lang="en" ShortName="vatspecial">
    17.5% Non-Recoverable
  </Description>
</Tax>

Or

<Tax>
  <Money currency="USD">0.00</Money>
  <Description xml:lang="en">
    <LongName>17.5% Non-Recoverable</LongName>
    <ShortName>vatspecial</ShortName>
  </Description>
</Tax>

Answer 2

With mixed=true, in ObjectFactory there should be a function like JAXBElement<ShortNameType> createTaxDescriptionTypeShortNameType(ShortNameType), which generates the serializable element for you.

 @XmlElementDecl(namespace = "", name = "shortnametype", scope = TaxDescriptionType.class)
    public JAXBElement<ShortNameType> createTaxDescriptionTypeShortNameType(ShortNameType value) {
        return new JAXBElement<ShortNameType>(new QName("", "shortnametype"), ShortNameType.class, TaxDescriptionType.class, value);
 }