[Simple-support] Serializing collections with both SimpleXML-annotated and not annotated types

[Stanislaw O. <sta...@ca...>]

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for sharing SimpleXML with the world, it makes working
with XMLs a breeze!

One usage scenario in my code is this: I have a map of objects (Map<String,
Object>) that can contain instances of a number of JDK types (String,
Integer, Double, Boolean etc.) but also some SimpleXML-annotated types. The
problem obviously is that while the annotated types serialize / deserialize
nicely, the JDK ones will not (unless the collection has the JDK type in its
declaration, which is not possible in my case).

I was wondering what was the recommended way of serializing / deserializing
such collections. One approach that crossed my mind is replacing the JDK
types with some sort of XML-annotated wrappers before serialization and
reverting the mapping after deserialization, but maybe there is a better
way? (after all, SimpleXML has mechanisms for serialization of e.g. a
List<Integer>, so why not reuse them if possible?)

Thanks,

Staszek

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