Whats the difference between the Javabean Cartridge and XML Binding frameworks like JAXB, XMLBeans, XStream etc?
The Javabeans Cartridge is not intended as a straight alternative to existing XML Binding frameworks such as those listed above. If your only requirement is that of binding XML to and from Java Objects, then you should probably go with one of the these other frameworks. The Smooks Java binding functionality can be a very useful alternative: • For binding non-XML data e.g. EDI, CSV, Java (i.e. performing Java to Java transforms). • For binding XML data that doesn’t line up with the target java object model. • In situations where your source data model does not conform to any schema. Some tools (e.g. JAXB and XMLBeans) require you to have an XSD, from which the Java model is generated and against which the source message is validated. • Performing Expression Based Bindings. • For creating Virtual Object Models. This can be very useful when performing model driven transformations. • For binding XML data where the XML model’s dataset is a superset of the Java model’s dataset i.e. where you
