[castor-dev] Marshall abstract array element

[TERRILL,JODY (HP-Boise,ex1)]

Hello,

 

I am trying to do some XML un/marshalling with Castor 0.9.3 and am hitting a block when I try to marshall an abstract Array element.  FYI, I am using only the Descriptor framework (no mapping or reflection). 

 

I wish to have an element that contains only an abstract base class that contains the child elements.  An example of this follows:

public class Root{
    private java.util.ArrayList _messageList; // holds Message objects with appropriate getters/setters
}

public abstract class Message;
public class Message1 extends Message;
public class Message2 extends Message;

An XML instance can look like ...

<Root>
    <Message1 IDA="1"/>
    <Message2 IDB="2"/>
</Root>

In the RootDescriptor, I can add an XMLFieldDescriptorImpl for each of the concrete Messages (i.e. Message1 & Message2) that details their XML name and base class.  I then can add an XMLFieldHandler to each that creates the correct object and gets/sets it into the messageList.  As expected, this works fine for unmarshalling.

When I marshall the class (to XML), it appears that each FieldDescriptor is invoked so that I get the following XML out.

<Root>
    <Message1 IDA="1"/>
    <Message1 IDB="2" xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xsi:type="java:message2"/>
    <Message2 IDA="1" xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xsi:type="java:message1"/>
    <Message2 IDB="2"/>
</Root>

I tried creating my own FieldDescriptor, etc.. but didn't have any luck.  Is there a way to map one attribute to many xml field names and objects for both marshalling and unmarshalling?

Thanks in advance,
    Jody Terrill
    Hewlett-Packard