JAXB:
The JAXB binding compiler translates a W3C XML Schema into one or more Java classes,
a jaxb.properties file, and possibly other files, depending on the specific implementation
of JAXB. Alternatively, JAXB2 offers a way to generate a schema from annotated Java classes.

Below is the call to generate the JAXB classes from an XML schema:
 xjc -d out Example.xsd 

XMLBeans:
XMLBeans is an XML binding tool that has full XML Schema support, and offers full XML Infoset
fidelity. It takes a different approach to that of most other O/X mapping frameworks,
in that all classes that are generated from an XML Schema are all derived from XmlObject,
and contain XML binding information in them.

Below is the call to generate the JAXB classes from an XML schema:
 scomp -d out -srconly  Example.xsd
 

Both XMLBeans and JAXB produce Java models that make it easy for developers to interact with XML.
 The JAXB model however is annotated POJOs which has the following advantages:

i) JPA annotations could easily be applied to the JAXB model enabling the model to be persisted
in a relational database.
ii) Once generated the JAXB model could be modified to handle changes in the XML schema,
the XMLBeans model would need to be regenerated.
iii) Starting with Java SE 6 no additional compile/runtime dependencies are required
for the JAXB model.
iv)There are multiple JAXB implementations available:  EclipseLink MOXy, Metro,
Apache JaxMe, etc.
v)JAXB is the standard binding layer for JAX-WS (SOAP) and JAX-RS (RESTful) Web Services.
vi) In XMLbeans you can traverse any element by using Xpath/XQuery, but in Jaxb.

Back to top