JaxB unmarshall unexpected element error

Question

I am running jaxb on the following xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<planet>
  <animal>bear</animal>
</planet>

Using the following java code.

import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException;
import javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
@XmlRootElement(name="planet")
public class Read_Test{
    public static void main(String[] args) throws JAXBException {
        File file = new File("/home/devel/Desktop/a.xml");
        JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(String.class);
        Unmarshaller jaxbUnmarshaller = jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();
        String planet = (String) jaxbUnmarshaller.unmarshal(file);
        System.out.println(planet);
    }
}

and the following error keeps popping up.

Exception in thread "main" javax.xml.bind.UnmarshalException: unexpected element (uri:"", local:"planet"). Expected elements are (none)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallingContext.handleEvent(UnmarshallingContext.java:647)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.Loader.reportError(Loader.java:243)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.Loader.reportError(Loader.java:238)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.Loader.reportUnexpectedChildElement(Loader.java:105)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallingContext$DefaultRootLoader.childElement(UnmarshallingContext.java:1048)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallingContext._startElement(UnmarshallingContext.java:483)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallingContext.startElement(UnmarshallingContext.java:465)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.SAXConnector.startElement(SAXConnector.java:135)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(AbstractSAXParser.java:509)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.java:379)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl$NSContentDriver.scanRootElementHook(XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.java:605)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:3138)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:880)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.java:117)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:648)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal0(UnmarshallerImpl.java:203)
    at com.sun.xml.internal.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal(UnmarshallerImpl.java:175)
    at javax.xml.bind.helpers.AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal(AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.java:157)
    at javax.xml.bind.helpers.AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal(AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.java:162)
    at javax.xml.bind.helpers.AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal(AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.java:171)
    at javax.xml.bind.helpers.AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.unmarshal(AbstractUnmarshallerImpl.java:189)
    at adsss.test.xml.Read_Test.main(Read_Test.java:14)

However I do have the @XmlRootElement(name="planet") element defined so it should not be an unexpected element. What could be causing the unexpected element error to keep popping up?

Answer 1

Based on your code you want to unmarshal a String instance form the XML. Obviously String does not define a planet element anywhere.

You want to unmarshal a Read_test instance:

JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(Read_test.class);

Also you might want to add an animal attribute to your Read_test class else you won't see that data from the XML anywhere stored.

For example:

@XmlRootElement(name="planet")
public class Read_Test{
    @XmlElement
    private String animal;

    // Rest of your class
}

And if you want to see what is the read animal, print that:

System.out.println(planet.animal);