How to make jxpath read @xmlelement name attribute instead of actual field name?

Question

I have a class with a field which looks like this

@XmlElement(name = "Name", namespace = "a:b:c:1", required = true)
protected String firstName

I want to use JXPath like this

String name = (String) context.getValue("Name");

But it doesn't recognize the XMLElement name attribute. Is there any way to make it do so?

Answer 1

I don't think you can. JXPath allows navigation of bean hierarchies using the standard bean get/is notation, but doesn't provide a means of accessing annotations on a field.

I think you should perhaps look at this answer re. finding annotations. Perhaps you can combine with a JXPath solution ?

Answer 2

I did this as Brian suggested

Field[] fields = rq.getClass().getDeclaredFields();
    Map<String, String> annotationMap = new HashMap<>();

    for(Field field:fields)
    {

        if(field.getAnnotation(XmlElement.class).name().equals("Name"))
        {
            annotationMap.put("Name", field.getName());
        }
    }

String name = (String) context.getValue(annotationMap.get("Name"));
    System.out.println(name);

But won't this approach be tedious if I have a 100 fields or more? Is there a better way to do this?