This Jackson extension module provides support for using JAXB (javax.xml.bind) annotations as an alternative to native Jackson annotations. It is most often used to make it easier to reuse existing data beans that used with JAXB framework to read and write XML.

Module is fully usable, as it is based on earlier "jackson-xc" jar that was part of Jackson distribution in 1.x versions.

For Jackson 2.0 functionality will be only offered through this module.

To use this extension on Maven-based projects, use following dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.module</groupId>
  <artifactId>jackson-module-jaxb-annotations</artifactId>
  <version>2.1.1</version>
</dependency>

(or whatever version is most up-to-date at the moment)

To enable use of JAXB annotations, one must add JaxbAnnotationIntrospector provided by this module. There are two ways to do this:

• Register JaxbAnnotationModule, or
• Directly add JaxbAnnotationIntrospector

Module registration works in standard way:

JaxbAnnotationModule module = new JaxbAnnotationModule(); // configure as necessary objectMapper.registerModule(module);

and the alternative -- explicit configuration is done as:

AnnotationIntrospector introspector = new JaxbAnnotationIntrospector();
// if ONLY using JAXB annotations:
mapper.setAnnotationIntrospector(introspector);
// if using BOTH JAXB annotations AND Jackson annotations:
AnnotationIntrospector secondary = new JacksonAnnotationIntrospector();
mapper.setAnnotationIntrospector(new AnnotationIntrospector.Pair(introspector, secondary);

Note that by default Module version will use JAXB annotations as the primary, and Jackson annotations as secondary source; but you can change this behavior

(need to add example here!)