java - Generate additional custom method with jaxb-xjc

Question

There's some way to generate a custom method within an class generated with JAXB.

I search around tutorials, including oracle's tutorial, but I didn't find clear instructions how can I custom methods to a generated class described on XML Schema.

Answer 1

I have found the following to be the best way to add custom behavior:

https://javaee.github.io/jaxb-v2/doc/user-guide/ch03.html#compiling-xml-schema-adding-behaviors

You can implement the custom behavior for a JAXB generated class BaseType in a custom class BaseTypeExt that extends the JAXB generated class BaseType.

You also tell JAXB to use your extended class BaseTypeExt (instead of the BaseType class it extends) as the base class for all classes that normally would have extended the BaseType class.

I used this successfully to override the toString() method in my generated class BaseType.

This seems simpler than writing an XJC plugin.