What is 'XML-Java Binding'?

XML-Java Binding is the process of converting objects that are represented as XML documents into "live" Java objects. Conversely, you would also like to be able to convert a "live" Java object into its corresponding XML document.

In the past, writing programs to perform this conversion has been a time-consuming activity. Now, however, it need not be so time-consuming, as there are many tools out there that take the drudgery out of this conversion.

One of the important evolutionary milestones for the Java development was the release of JDOM. JDOM makes it easier for a Java programmer to get at the document object model (tree structure) of an XML document. This does not help as much as a true XML-Java data binding tool, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. For more information about JDOM, go to the website at jdom.org.

The following are the XML-Java Data binding tools that I found by searching the web. I can't comment on ease of use, reliability, or any other aspect, as I haven't got as far as using any of them, but collecting together a list of candidates is, I hope, useful in itself.

• JAXB (java.sun.com/xml/jaxb/)
• Castor (http://www.castor.org/)
• XML Beans (http://xmlbeans.apache.org/)
• JaxME (http://ws.apache.org/jaxme/)
• Betwixt (http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/betwixt/)
• Enhydra Zeus (http://zeus.objectweb.org/)

STOP PRESS: a far more comprehensive list of tools can be found here

I also found a useful overview of XML-Java Binding.

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