JiBX - XML Data Binding for Java / News: Recent posts

The 1.2.3 release fixes many problems found in the 1.2.2 release, including several relating to code generation from schema. It also provides better support for some schema features, including xs:list types.

JiBX/OTA 1.0 is now available. This subproject is a set of examples and sample code intended to help developers working with the Open Travel Alliance (http://www.opentravel.org/) schemas. It includes two different examples of JiBX code generation from the OTA schemas, an example of WSDL generation from a Java interface for a web service based on OTA messages, and two different sample implementations of a client and server for the web service (Axis2 with standard SOAP/HTTP support, and JiBX/WS with SOAP/HTTP as well as POX/HTTP, SOAP/TCP, and POX/TCP, including high-performance XBIS encoding support).

JiBX 1.2.2 has been released, with many bug fixes, improvements, and new features. Highlights include:

• Added support for Joda time conversions for better representation of schema date/time types.
• Corrected several problems with <xs:any> handling by CodeGen.
• Added CodeGen command line parameters to use pregenerated bindings and code for referenced schemas, and to allow generating no-namespace schemas in a namespace.
• Added support for using existing bindings and schemas with Jibx2Wsdl, along with customizations for service method parameters and return values.
• Support classpath: URLs for binding include paths.

We're pleased to announce the availability of JiBX/WS v0.9-beta.

JiBX/WS is a framework for creating fast, simple web services.

Features include:

* supports SOAP 1.1 and POX (Plain Old XML) protocols, with planned support for REST and SOAP 1.2.
* supports HTTP and TCP/IP transports (using DIME message exchange).
* XML messages can be encoded as text or using the XBIS binary format, for best performance.
* SOAP support is limited to document/literal (doc/lit) web services, with no support for RPC/encoded.
* supports JDK 1.3.1 or later.
* supports the Spring Framework, but can also be used without Spring... [read more](/p/jibx/news/2009/06/jibxws-09-beta-released/)

I've released JiBX 1.2.1 earlier than originally planned, after finding and correcting several errors in the 1.2 release (mainly around code generation from schema, including some issues which resulted in incorrect binding definitions). This release also includes basic documentation for Jibx2Wsdl, and the Jibx2Wsdl examples now go all the way through to deployable web services when using Axis2 updated with the update-axis2-1.4.X code available from the download page.

JiBX XML data binding for Java announces the 1.2 release, providing greatly enhanced support for both code-first and XML schema-first development. The IBM developerWorks tutorials http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/tutorials/j-jibx1/ and http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/tutorials/j-jibx2/ guide you through using these new features. Also new to 1.2 is support for separately-compiled bindings.

JiBX 1.1.6 has just been released, along with a corresponding update to the jibxtools subproject (Beta 0.4). There's also a new Eclipse plugin - see the details on this at http://jibx.sourceforge.net/eclipse/

The 1.1 production release is now available, with a host of added features including:

1. Added support for StAX parser input and StAX writer output.
2. Added <binding add-constructors="true"> option to generate no-argument
   constructors where needed.
3. Added flexible attribute to structure group (requires ordered="false", all
   child components must define element names).
4. Added nillable attribute to object group and value element, supporting the
   xsi:nil attribute at runtime (requires element name, not allowed on abstract
   mapping)
5. Added create-type attribute to object group.
6. Added direct support for Java 5 enumerations.
7. Provided J2ME compatibility, with new "j2me" build target to build J2ME
   version of the distribution jars.
8. Added support for required elements in ordered="false" groups, along with
   checks for repeated elements, defined allow-repeats attribute in structure group
   to disable checking.... read more

After three years of development, JiBX has now been declared officially production ready. Of course, many developers have already been using JiBX in production environments for at least the last two years. For other companies that have restrictions on the use of beta software, JiBX is now ready to participate fully in their development efforts.

Look for the first 1.1 beta release to follow within the next two weeks.

The RC2 release of JiBX is now available. I'm going to try very hard to resist tinkering with this any further (especially since I want to do a 1.1 beta in January), and unless serious issues are found I expect to re-release it as 1.0 before Christmas. Here's a list of some major changes since RC1:

1. Fixed problems that occurred when both a regular top-level <mapping> and one with type-name="..." were used for the same class.
2. Fixed code generation for unordered collection of objects with simple values.
3. Corrected code generation problem for constant value, handle required constant.
4. Changed default java.util.Date serialization to use trailing "Z" to indicate values are supplied as UTC.
5. Fixed case where optional empty structure reference to mapping caused code generation error.
6. Corrected binding validation checks for compatible mapping definition.
7. Restructured code generation for abstract mappings to handle stack inconsistency for user method calls.
8. Added support for multiple levels of extension mappings.
9. Fixed problem with arrays of primitive types.
10. Restructured java.sql.Date handling to work around problems in the Java implementation.

RC1 is now available. This includes a number of fixes to problems found in RC0, along with some added features intended mainly for use with web services.

I've posted the new release of JiBX along with initial releases of JibxSoap and Xsd2Jibx on SourceForge. Due to the continuing problems with the SourceForge project CVS for the jibx module I finally created a new module (core) for the JiBX code. From now on, just use this module for CVS access. JiBX changes include fixes for a number of problems, as well as handling of more data types and improved code generation.

The JiBX project CVS is currently inaccessible. For discussion and tracking of the issue see http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=973432&group_id=1&atid=200001 This has caused me to put on hold plans for a beta 3c release, along with the alpha releases of Xsd2Jibx and JibxSoap (since at least the latter depends on the recent post-beta 3b changes to JiBX). I'm working on the beta 4 changes, and plan to get a beta 4 release out by the end of June regardless of what happens with the CVS.

The Beta 3b release fixes several potentially serious bugs found in the Beta 3a release. It's intended to provide a stable version of the code while the Beta 4 changes are being implemented and tested.

The new Beta 3a release adds several features beyond those supported by the Beta 3 code, along with a number of bug fixes. New features include runtime binding support (mainly intended for testing and debugging), source location tracking for unmarshalled objects, greatly generalized output handling (in terms of both character encoding support for text output, and output to formats other than text), and custom marshaller/unmarshallers for dom4j and W3C DOM document models.

The JiBX Beta 3 release is now out, featuring many bug fixes and some significantly enhanced functionality over Beta 2, along with added tools that include a binding round-trip test program. This version also provides more usage information in the Binding Tutorial documentation, and a full set of code for all the examples used in the Tutorial.

The long-awaited Beta 2 release is finally out. This one includes a host of added features and bug fixes. It also includes updated and expanded usage information demonstrating the features of JiBX binding definitions.

I've posted the Beta 1 release to the site. This doesn't have much in the way of added features, partially because I didn't want to perturb things too much for what will probably be the first widely used distribution. I'll try to get most of the remaining planned features added in time for the Beta 2 later this month.

There's also a new JiBX article live on IBM developerWorks - check the link from the bottom of the home page, live or in the download. A second article focusing more on using JiBX should be up in a week or two.

This release features several major added features from the Demo release 0.7. These features include namespace handling, full structure mapping, formats for serializing/deserializing, and a tested set of standard conversions for primitive types as well as String and Date. It also includes a comprehensive description of the binding definition file format.

With this Alpha release JiBX should be usable by many applications. The first Beta release should follow within two weeks, with a few added features and additional test cases.

The new jibx-demo-0.7 release includes a working binding compiler as well as updated runtime. It uses three separate binding files for the demonstration program, including one that does structure mapping between XML and Java objects. This is something none of the other XML data binding alternatives for Java support.

Look for a Beta 1 release mid-March. Production release is targeted for before the end of April, 2003.

The IBM developerWorks comparison of XML data binding frameworks for Java should be coming out today, so it's time to start bringing this site up to date. JiBX is nearing the point of initial public release. You can look for file to start showing up in the CVS by end of day, followed within a day or two by some notes on JiBX usage and architecture. The initial demo release of JiBX will be by February 1, 2003. At that point we'll take a look at pruning the planned feature set to allow for a timely (within the next two months) production release.