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Gordon Passy
Gordon Passy

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Kotlin data class to xml

Let’s say you have this sample data class that you want to serialize to xml

data class SampleDataClass(
        val externalTxnId: String,
        val merchantTxnId: String,
        val reference: String
)

Steps

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
   <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-xml</artifactId>
   <version>2.10.1</version>
</dependency>
  • Initialize the XmlMapper
val xmlMapper = XmlMapper(
        JacksonXmlModule().apply { setDefaultUseWrapper(false) }
).apply {
        enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT)
}
  • Initialize your data class and use the mapper’s writeValueAsString() method to get the xml value.
fun main() {
        val xmlMapper = XmlMapper(
                JacksonXmlModule().apply { setDefaultUseWrapper(false) }
        ).apply {
                enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT)
                enable(SerializationFeature.WRAP_ROOT_VALUE)
        }

        val data = SampleDataClass(
                externalTxnId = "07026984141550752666",
                merchantTxnId = "07026984141550752666",
                reference     = "MERCHPAY"
        )
        val xml = xmlMapper.writeValueAsString(data)
        println(xml)
}

//This will give out the following output

<SampleDataClass>
  <externalTxnId>07026984141550752666</externalTxnId>
  <merchantTxnId>07026984141550752666</merchantTxnId>
  <reference>MERCHPAY</reference>
</SampleDataClass>

Default root element used is the simple name of the data class. So if you don’t want to use the defaults, that’s where the annotation @JacksonXmlRootElement for root element and @JacksonXmlProperty for fields come in.

Let’s say we want the root element to be labelled COMMAND and the fields externalTxnId to EXTTRID, merchantTxnId to MERCHANT_TXN_ID and finally reference to REFERENCE. To have this implemented we’ll add the annotations to the data class as below:

@JacksonXmlRootElement(localName = "COMMAND")
data class SampleDataClass(
        @field:JacksonXmlProperty(localName = "EXTTRID")
        val externalTxnId: String,
        @field:JacksonXmlProperty(localName = "MERCHANT_TXN_ID")
        val merchantTxnId: String,
        @field:JacksonXmlProperty(localName = "REFERENCE")
        val reference: String
)fun main() {
        val xmlMapper = XmlMapper(
                JacksonXmlModule().apply { setDefaultUseWrapper(false) }
        ).apply {
                enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT)
                enable(SerializationFeature.WRAP_ROOT_VALUE)
        }

        val data = SampleDataClass(
                externalTxnId = "07026984141550752666",
                merchantTxnId = "07026984141550752666",
                reference     = "MERCHPAY"
        )
        val xml = xmlMapper.writeValueAsString(data)
        println(xml)
}//This will give the following output<COMMAND>
  <EXTTRID>07026984141550752666</EXTTRID>
  <MERCHANT_TXN_ID>07026984141550752666</MERCHANT_TXN_ID>
  <REFERENCE>MERCHPAY</REFERENCE>
</COMMAND>

Top comments (4)

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davidbojkovski profile image
David Bojkovski

Why would you want to serialize a data class to XML? Could you give a real example of where this might happen?

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martingele profile image
Martin Gelevski

My friend David you are stuck on XMLs also

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gordonpassy profile image
Gordon Passy

Hi David. An example would be some payment APIs such as Temenos T24

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muyembeii profile image
MuyembeII

Consume a SOAP web service end point