ignore field based on condition while marshalling

Question

The following class needs to be marshalled to xml.

class A {
    @XmlElement
    private boolean readFlag;

    // ... and some other fields
}

However, the readFlag should only be in the returned xml, under some conditions. I can not use @XmlTransient, because that would always leave it out.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

One thing you could do is use the Boolean wrapper class and set the value of the field to null if you don't want to have it marshalled - null fields are left out by default.

If you use EclipseLink/MOXy as JAXB implementation, you could also use its object graph feature, for a list of articles about that see here.