Spring with Xstream

Xstream is a simple Java-based serialization/deserialization library to convert Java Objects into their XML representation. It can also be used to convert an XML string to an equivalent Java Object. It is a fast, and efficient extension to the Java standard library. It’s also highly customizable. For this tutorial, we assume Java and environment variables are properly installed in your local environment.

Download the XStream Archive

Download the latest Xstream archive from this link. If you downloaded the jar then you’ve to set the CLASSPATH variable manually or with the help of IDE, (or)

With Maven:

If you added it to your project through the maven central repository, then you don’t need to set the CLASSPATH variable, maven will do this automatically for you.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.thoughtworks.xstream</groupId>
  <artifactId>xstream</artifactId>
  <version>1.4.19</version>
</dependency>

Set CLASSPATH Variable

Manually:

Linux: 

export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:$XStream_HOME/xstream-1.4.19.jar: 

Windows:

Set the environment variable CLASSPATH to

%CLASSPATH%;%XStream_HOME%\xstream-1.4.19.jar;

Mac:

export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:$XStream_HOME/xstream-1.4.19.jar:

(OR)

With the help of an IDE:  In IntelliJ IDEA follow the below steps:

Steps:

Right Click on Project  ->  Open Module Settings  ->  Libraries  ->  Click on ‘+’   ->   Add Xstream Jar  ->  Apply and OK

XStream Application

Make sure you’ve already set up Spring core and web jar files

Java

import lombok.Getter;

@Getter
public class Employee {
    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;
    private int salary;
    private int age;
    private String gender;

    public Employee(String firstName, String lastName,
                    int salary, int age, String gender)
    {
        this.firstName = firstName;
        this.lastName = lastName;
        this.salary = salary;
        this.age = age;
        this.gender = gender;
    }
}

Java

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.DomDriver;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class XStreamExampleApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        throws IOException
    {
        // Initializing XStream with Dom driver
        XStream xStream = new XStream(new DomDriver());

        // Now, to make the XML outputted by XStream more
        // concise, you can create aliases for your custom
        // class names to XML element names. This is the
        // only type of mapping required to use XStream and
        // even this is optional.
        xStream.alias("employee", Employee.class);

        Employee e1 = new Employee("Sanyog", "Gautam", 1000,
                                   19, "Male");

        // Serializing a Java object into XML
        String xml
            = xStream.toXML(e1); // Converting it to XML
        System.out.println(xml);

        // Java Object to a file
        try (FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(
                 "/home/anurag/xstreamExample.xml")) {
            xStream.toXML(e1, writer);
        }
        catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

As you can see, we get our clean XML

<employee>
  <firstName>Sanyog</firstName>
  <lastName>Gautam</lastName>
  <salary>100</salary>
  <age>19</age>
  <gender>Male</gender>
</employee>

We can deserialize our object from that XML

Java

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.DomDriver;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class XStreamExampleApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        throws IOException
    {
        // Initializing XStream with Dom driver
        XStream xStream = new XStream(new DomDriver());

        // We need to configure the security framework in
        // XStream, so it deserializes the object from the
        // XML
        xStream.allowTypes(new Class[] { Employee.class });

        // Now, to make the XML outputted by XStream more
        // concise, you can create aliases for your custom
        // class names to XML element names. This is the
        // only type of mapping required to use XStream and
        // even this is optional.
        xStream.alias("employee", Employee.class);

        Employee e1 = new Employee("Sanyog", "Gautam", 1000,
                                   19, "Male");

        // Serializing a Java object into XML
        String xml
            = xStream.toXML(e1); // Converting it to XML

        // Deserializing a Java object from XML
        Employee employee = (Employee)xStream.fromXML(xml);

        System.out.println("First name of Employee:  "
                           + employee.getFirstName());
        System.out.println("Last name of Employee:   "
                           + employee.getLastName());
        System.out.println("Employee's age:          "
                           + employee.getAge());
        System.out.println("Employee's gender:       "
                           + employee.getGender());
        System.out.println("Employee's salary:       $"
                           + employee.getSalary());
    }
}

We get our object back

Deserialized object from XML