# Mapping interfaces

Because of the difference between the XML type system induced by W3C XML Schema and the Java type system, JAXB cannot bind interfaces out of the box, but there are a few things you can do.

## Use `@XmlRootElement`

When your interface is implemented by a large number of sub-classes, consider using `XmlRootElement` annotation like this:

XmlRootElement for open-ended interfaces

    @XmlRootElement
    class Zoo {
      @XmlAnyElement
      public List<Animal> animals;
    }

    interface Animal {
      void sleep();
      void eat();
      ...
    }

    @XmlRootElement
    class Dog implements Animal { ... }

    @XmlRootElement
    class Lion implements Animal { ... }

This will produce XML documents like this:

XML for XmlRootElement

    <zoo>
        <lion> ... </lion>
        <dog> ... </dog>
    </zoo>

The key characteristics of this approach is:

1. Implementations are open-ended; anyone can implement those interfaces, even by different people from different modules, provided they are all given to the `JAXBContext.newInstance` method. There's no need to list all the implementation classes in anywhere.

2. Each implementation of the interface needs to have an unique element name.

3. Every reference to interface needs to have the `XmlElementRef` annotation. The `type=Object.class` portion tells JAXB that the greatest common base type of all implementations would be `java.lang.Object`.

`@XmlElementWrapper` is often useful with this, as it allows you need to group them. Such as:

XmlRootElement for open-ended interfaces

    @XmlRootElement
    class Zoo {
      @XmlElementWrapper
      @XmlAnyElement
      public List<Animal> onExhibit;
      @XmlElementWrapper
      @XmlAnyElement
      public List<Animal> resting;
    }

Effect of XmlElementWrapper

    <zoo>
        <onExhibit>
            <lion> ... </lion>
            <dog> ... </dog>
        </onExhibit>
        <resting>
            <lion> ... </lion>
            <dog> ... </dog>
        </resting>
    </zoo>

## Use `@XmlJavaTypeAdapter`

When you use interfaces just to hide your implementation classes from exposure, and when there's 1-to-1 (or close to 1-on-1) relationship between a class and an interface, `XmlJavaTypeAdapter` can be used like below.

XmlJavaTypeAdapter for interfaces

    @XmlJavaTypeAdapter(FooImpl.Adapter.class)
    interface IFoo {
      ...
    }
    class FooImpl implements IFoo {
      @XmlAttribute
      private String name;
      @XmlElement
      private int x;

      ...

      static class Adapter extends XmlAdapter<FooImpl,IFoo> {
        IFoo unmarshal(FooImpl v) { return v; }
        FooImpl marshal(IFoo v) { return (FooImpl)v; }
      }
    }

    class Somewhere {
      public IFoo lhs;
      public IFoo rhs;
    }

XML of XmlJavaTypeAdapter

    <somewhere>
      <lhs name="...">
        <x>5</x>
      </lhs>
      <rhs name="...">
        <x>5</x>
      </rhs>
    </somewhere>

The key characteristics of this approach is:

1. Interface and implementation will be tightly coupled through an adapter, although changing an adapter code will allow you to support multiple implementations.

2. There's no need of any annotation in where interfaces are used.

A variation of this technique is when you have a few implementations for interface, not just one.

XmlJavaTypeAdapter for interfaces with multiple implementations

    @XmlJavaTypeAdapter(AbstractFooImpl.Adapter.class)
    interface IFoo {
      ...
    }
    abstract class AbstractFooImpl implements IFoo {
      ...

      static class Adapter extends XmlAdapter<AbstractFooImpl,IFoo> {
        IFoo unmarshal(AbstractFooImpl v) { return v; }
        AbstractFooImpl marshal(IFoo v) { return (AbstractFooImpl)v; }
      }
    }

    class SomeFooImpl extends AbstractFooImpl {
      @XmlAttribute String name;
      ...
    }

    class AnotherFooImpl extends AbstractFooImpl {
      @XmlAttribute int id;
      ...
    }

    class Somewhere {
      public IFoo lhs;
      public IFoo rhs;
    }

XML of XmlJavaTypeAdapter with multiple implementations

    <somewhere>
      <lhs xsi:type="someFooImpl" name="...">
      </lhs>
      <rhs xsi:type="anotherFooImpl" id="3" />
    </somewhere>

Note that `SomeFooImpl` and `AnotherFooImpl` must be submitted to `JAXBContext.newInstance` one way or the other.

To take this example a bit further, you can use `Object` instead of `AbstractFooImpl`. The following example illustarates this:

XmlJavaTypeAdapter for interfaces with multiple implementations

    @XmlJavaTypeAdapter(AnyTypeAdapter.class)
    interface IFoo {
      ...
    }
    public class AnyTypeAdapter extends XmlAdapter<Object,Object> {
      Object unmarshal(Object v) { return v; }
      Object marshal(Object v) { return v; }
    }

    class SomeFooImpl implements IFoo {
      @XmlAttribute String name;
      ...
    }

    class Somewhere {
      public IFoo lhs;
      public IFoo rhs;
    }

Corresponding schema

    <xs:complexType name="somewhere">
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="lhs" type="xs:anyType" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element name="rhs" type="xs:anyType" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>

As you can see, the schema will generated to accept `xs:anyType` which is more relaxed than what the Java code actually demands. The instance will be the same as the above example. Starting from JAXB RI 2.1, we bundle the `com.sun.xml.bind.AnyTypeAdapter` class in the runtime that defines this adapter. So you won't have to write this adapter in your code.

## Use `@XmlElement`

If the use of interface is very little and there's 1-to-1 (or close to) relationship between interfaces and implementations, then you might find `XmlElement` to be the least amount of work.

XmlElement for interfaces

    interface IFoo {
      ...
    }
    class FooImpl implements IFoo {
      ...
    }

    class Somewhere {
      @XmlElement(type=FooImpl.class)
      public IFoo lhs;
    }

XML of XmlElement

    <somewhere>
      <lhs> ... </lhs>
    </somewhere>

This effectively tells JAXB runtime that "even though the field is `IFoo`, it's really just `FooImpl`.

In this approach, a reference to an interface has to have knowledge of the actual implementation class. So while this requires the least amount of typing, it probably wouldn't work very well if this crosses module boundaries.

Like the `XmlJavaTypeAdapter` approach, this can be used even when there are multiple implementations, provided that they share the common ancestor.

The extreme of this case is to specify `@XmlElement(type=Object.class)`.

## Hand-write schema

Occasionally the above approaches cause the generated schema to become somewhat ugly, even though it does make the JAXB runtime work correctly. In such case you can choose not to use the generated schema and instead manually modify/author schemas tht better match your needs.

## Do schema-to-java

With sufficient knowlege, one can also use `<jaxb:class ref="..."/>` annotation so that you can cause XJC to use the classes you already wrote. See this thread for an example. TODO: more details and perhaps an example.

## DOESN'T WORK: Have JAXB generate interaces and swap different implementations

Some users attempted to use the "`generateValueClass`" customization and see if they can completely replace the generated implementations with other implementations. Unfortunately, this does not work.

Even with the interface/implementation mode, JAXB runtime still requires that the implementation classes have all the JAXB annotations. So just implementing interfaces is not sufficient. (This mode is mainly added to simplify the migration from JAXB 1.0 to JAXB 2.0, and that's a part of the reason why things are done this way.)