Using ID and IDREF in your WSDLs response messages with JAXB

For one of my projects, I have implemented the ID/IDREF XML pattern inside one of my Web Services. When I created with JDeveloper a Web Service from it everything looked fine, no errors or what soever. I could receive this pattern inside my request messages without any problems. After I filled in the same String inside the IDREF as I did in ID the only response I get is a HTTP 200 without any body. For getting more information about the problem I used a custom SchemaValidationHandler inside my Web Service implementation.

@SchemaValidation( handler = SchemaValidationErrorHandler.class )

The source code for the custom SchemaValidationErrorHandler is:

package nl.whitehorses.idref.handler;

import com.sun.xml.ws.developer.ValidationErrorHandler;

import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;

public class SchemaValidationErrorHandler extends ValidationErrorHandler {

  public static final String WARNING = "SchemaValidationWarning";
  public static final String ERROR = "SchemaValidationError";
  public static final String FATAL_ERROR = "SchemaValidationFatalError";

  public void warning(SAXParseException exception) {
    packet.invocationProperties.put(WARNING, exception);
  }

  public void error(SAXParseException exception) {
    packet.invocationProperties.put(ERROR, exception);
  }

  public void fatalError(SAXParseException exception) {
    packet.invocationProperties.put(FATAL_ERROR, exception);
  }

}

After using the schema validation I got response from the Web Service it was a SAXparser Exception. After some puzzling I figured out that it was the relationship between the ID and the IDREF. The IDREF couldn’t find the the ID during marshalling of the response message. I was looking around the internet for two days but I didn’t find any direct answer to my problem. What I found strange is that the ID is always a String and the IDREF is a Object. And in the examples the IDREF was a specified Object like a Car a Book or a Employee. After seeing this multiple times I put in the parent object of the ID inside the IDREF.

Here is a example of the code where I implemented the ID/IDREF pattern.

public GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType operation(GetAllEmployeesRequestMessageType input) throws FaultMessage {
        GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType employeeResponse = new GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType();
        employeeResponse.setCompanies(setCompanies());
        for(CompanyType company : employeeResponse.getCompanies().getCompany())
        {
            employeeResponse.setEmployees(setEmployees(company));
        }
        return employeeResponse;
    }

    private GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Companies setCompanies() {
        GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Companies companies = new GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Companies();
        companies.getCompany().add(setCompany());
        return companies;
    }

    private GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Employees setEmployees(CompanyType company) throws FaultMessage {
        GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Employees employees = new GetAllEmployeesResponseMessageType.Employees();
        employees.getEmployee().add(setEmployee(company));
        return employees;
    }

    private CompanyType setCompany() {
        CompanyType company = new CompanyType();
        company.setAddress(setAddress());
        company.setDepartment(setDepartmentComp());
        company.setId("hello123");
        company.setName("name");
        company.setPhoneNumber("0123456789");
        return company;
    }

    private EmployeeType setEmployee(CompanyType company) throws FaultMessage {
        EmployeeType employee = new EmployeeType();
        employee.setCommissionPct(new BigDecimal("0.25"));
        employee.setDepartment(setDepartment());
        employee.setEmail("email@adres.com");
        employee.setFirstName("first name");
        employee.setHireDate(getXMLGregorianCalendarNow());
        employee.setJob(setJob());
        employee.setLastName("last name");
        employee.setPhoneNumber("0123456789");
        employee.setSalary(new BigDecimal("1234.25"));
        employee.setCompanyId(company);
        return employee;
    }

After that I got response from the Web Service with the value of the ID inside the IDREF attribute.

<ns0:GetAllEmployeesResponseMessage xmlns:ns2="nl.whitehorses.entity.company" xmlns:ns1="nl.whitehorses.entity.employee" xmlns:ns0="nl.whitehorses.message.employee">
         <Companies>
            <Company id="hello123">
               <Name>name</Name>
               <Address>
                  <street>street</street>
               </Address>
               <PhoneNumber>0123456789</PhoneNumber>
               <Department>
                  <id>1</id>
                  <description>company department</description>
               </Department>
            </Company>
         </Companies>
         <Employees>
            <Employee CompanyId="hello123">
               <FirstName>first name</FirstName>
               <LastName>last name</LastName>
               <Email>email@adres.com</Email>
               <PhoneNumber>0123456789</PhoneNumber>
               <HireDate>2014-08-08T12:28:50.533+02:00</HireDate>
               <Salary>1234.25</Salary>
               <CommissionPct>0.25</CommissionPct>
               <Job>
                  <id>AC_ACCOUNT</id>
                  <description>dit is een job</description>
               </Job>
               <Department>
                  <id>2</id>
                  <description>employee department</description>
               </Department>
            </Employee>
         </Employees>
      </ns0:GetAllEmployeesResponseMessage>