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<h3><a name="collects">Working with collections and arrays</a></h3>
<p>Besides working with individual objects, applications often need to deal with
collections of objects. <a href="#figure8">Figure 8</a> gives a simple example
of using collections with JiBX. Here the classes represent the basics of an
airline flight timetable, which I'll expand on for the next examples. In this
example I'm using three collections in the root <code>TimeTable</code>
object, representing carriers (airlines), airports, and notes.</p>
<a name="figure8"><b>Figure 8. Basic collection handling</b></a><br>
<img src="images/collection-binding1.gif" width="594" height="448" alt="Basic collection handling"/>
<p>The <a href="#figure8">Figure 8</a> binding definition uses a
<b>collection</b> element for each collection. In the case of the first two
collections there's a nested <b>structure</b> element to provide the details of
the items present in the collection. I've highlighted the definitions for the
collection of carriers in green, and the actual carrier information in blue, to
emphasize the connection between the different components. The collection of
airports is handled in the same way as the collection of carriers.</p>
<p>The collection of notes differs from the other collections both in that it's
stored as an array, and that the values are simple <code>String</code>s rather
than objects with their own structure. You can use arrays of both object and
primitive types with the <b>collection</b> element. In the case of simple values
(primitives, or objects which are represented as simple text strings - including
<code>String</code>s, as in this example), you just use one or more nested
<b>value</b> elements (which must use <b>style="element"</b>, directly or by
default) instead of <b>structure</b> elements. The same applies for non-array
collections of simple values.</p>
<p>In the case of the <a href="#figure8">Figure 8</a> binding the collections
are homogeneous, with all items in each collection of a particular type. You can
also define heterogeneous collections, consisting of several types of items, by
just including more than one <b>structure</b> (or <b>value</b>) element as a
child of the <b>collection</b> element. <a href="#figure9">Figure 9</a>
demonstrates using a heterogeneous collection for the carrier and airport data
from <a href="#figure8">Figure 8</a>, with the <b>structure</b> definitions for
the carrier and airport components (shown in green) combined in a single
collection.</p>
<a name="figure9"><b>Figure 9. Heterogeneous collection, with factory</b></a><br>
<img src="images/collection-binding1a.gif" width="568" height="372" alt="Heterogeneous collection, with factory"/>
<p><a href="#figure9">Figure 9</a> also demonstrates one way to work with
collection interfaces (shown in blue). I've changed the type of the collection field in the
<code>TimeTable</code> class to the <code>List</code> interface, rather than the
concrete <code>ArrayList</code> class used in <a href="#figure8">Figure 8</a>.
I've also added the <code>listFactory()</code> method, which returns an instance
of a <code>List</code> interface. Finally, I added a <b>factory</b> attribute on
the binding definition <b>collection</b> element to specify the factory method.
When a factory method is given, JiBX calls that method to get a new instance of
the class if it needs one during unmarshalling (see
<a href="binding-extend.html#extmeths">User extension method hooks</a> for full details
on this and other ways of using your own code with JiBX). JiBX will reuse an
existing instance if one is already present, so the method is only called if the
current value of the field is <code>null</code> (though when reusing a
collection, you need to "manually" empty the collection before unmarshalling - a
<a href="binding-extend.html#extmeths"><b>pre-set</b> method</a> works well for this
purpose).</p>
<p>As of the JiBX 1.1 release there's an easier way to accomplish the same
effect as using a <b>factory</b> to supply instances of an implementation class.
This is to use the new <b>create-type</b> attribute to specify the class used
when creating new instances of an object. See the
<a href="../binding-attributes.html#object">object attribute</a> group
descriptions for the full details.</p>
<p>As with <b>structure</b> elements with multiple child components,
heterogeneous collections can be either ordered (meaning the items of each type
may be repeated, but the different types of items must always occur in the
specified order) or unordered (meaning the items can be in any order). Either
way, the child components of a collection are always treated as optional by JiBX
(so zero or more instances are accepted).</p>
<p>The <b>collection</b> element is generally similar to the <b>structure</b>
element in usage and options, but accepts some additional attributes that are
unique to working with collections of items. Most of the added attributes are
for when you want to implement a custom form of collection, using your own
methods to add and retrieve items in the collection. Another attribute,
<b>item-type</b>, can be used to specify the type of items in the
collection.</p>
<p>For the prior examples I've used embedded <b>structure</b> elements to define
the structure of items in the collection. This isn't the only way to use
collections, though. You can instead leave a <b>collection</b> element empty to
tell the binding compiler that objects in the collection will have their own
<b>mapping</b> definitions. Specifying the type of items can be useful in this
case to avoid ambiguity. <a href="#figure10">Figure 10</a> shows an example of
using mapping definitions in this way.</p>
<a name="figure10"><b>Figure 10. Collections with mappings</b></a><br>
<img src="images/collection-binding1b.gif" width="536" height="334" alt="Collections with mappings"/>
<p>In <a href="#figure10">Figure 10</a> I've converted the embedded carrier and
airport <b>structure</b> definitions used in the earlier examples into their own
<b>mapping</b> elements. The binding uses an <b>item-type</b> attribute to
specify that the first collection (shown in blue) contains only carriers, while
the second collection (shown in green) uses a generic <code>Object</code>
array for the airport information. In this example, if I didn't specify the type
of items present in the first collection JiBX wouldn't know when to stop adding
unmarshalled items to the first collection and start adding them to the second
collection. Using the <b>item-type</b> attribute makes it clear that the first
collection is only intended for <code>Carrier</code> instances. I could also
use an <b>item-type</b> attribute on the second collection, if I wanted to, but
in this case it's unnecessary - the only thing following the carrier information
in the XML representation is the airport information.</p>
<p>You can nest collections inside other collections. This is the approach
used to represent multidimensional arrays, or Java collections made up of other
collections. You can also use <b>value</b> elements directly as the child of a
<b>collection</b> element, though only if the <b>value</b> representation is as
an element. This is the way you'd handle a collection of simple <code>String</code>
values, or an array of <code>int</code> values, for instance.</p>
<p>The <b>collection</b> element will work directly with all standard Java
collections implementing the <code>java.util.Collection</code> interface, as
well as with arrays of both object and primitive types. It can also be used with
your own specialized collection types, using optional attributes to specify the
methods used by JiBX to access the collection data. When used with arrays, the
defined type of the array is assumed as the type of the items in the collection.
You can override this to a more specific type by using the <b>item-type</b>
attribute with an array. See the <a href="../collection-element.html"><collection>
element</a> details page for more details on the collection options and usage.</p>
</div>
<div class="h3">
<h3><a name="ids">Working with IDs</a></h3>
<p><a href="#figure11">Figure 11</a> gives a more complex example of working with
collections. This builds on the <a href="#figure10">Figure 10</a> XML and data
structures. The prior collections of <b>carrier</b> and <b>airport</b> elements
are still present, but now the XML representation uses wrapper elements
(<b>carriers</b> and <b>airports</b>, respectively) for the collections of each
type. The blue highlighting in the diagram shows this change. In the binding
definition, the addition of the wrapper element is shown by just adding a
<b>name</b> attribute to each <b>collection</b> element.</p>
<a name="figure11"><b>Figure 11. Collections and IDs</b></a><br>
<img src="images/collection-binding2.gif" width="582" height="550" alt="Collections and IDs"/>
<p>I've also added route and flight information to the <a href="#figure11">Figure
11</a> binding. The most interesting part about these additions is the use of
references back to the airport and carrier information. The carrier reference
linkages are highlighted in green, the airport linkages in magenta. In the Java
code, the linkages are direct object references. On the XML side, these are
converted into ID and IDREF links - each carrier or airport defines an ID value,
which is then referenced by flight or route elements. The binding definition
shows these linkages through the use of an <b>ident="def"</b> attribute on the
child <b>value</b> component of a <b>mapping</b> element supplying the ID, and an
<b>ident="ref"</b> attribute on an IDREF <b>value</b> component that references
an ID.</p>
<p>Using ID and IDREF links allows references between objects to be marshalled
and unmarshalled, but is subject to some limitations. Each object with an ID
must have a <b>mapping</b> in the binding. The current JiBX code also requires
that you define objects in some consistent way, though the references to the
objects can be from anywhere (even before the actual definitions
of the objects). In other words, you have to define each object once and only
once. In <a href="#figure11">Figure 11</a> the definitions occur in the
<b>carriers</b> and <b>airports</b> collections. The current code also prohibits
using IDREF values directly within a collection (so the definitions can be from
a collection, but not the references) - to use references in a collection you
need to define some sort of wrapper object that actually holds the reference.
However, see <a href="../../extras.html#ididref">JiBX extras</a> for some support classes
which extend the basic JiBX handling in these areas.</p>
<div><p align="center"><a href="binding-mappings.html"><b>Next: The many flavors of mappings</b></a></p></div>
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