Insurance Profile System using Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB)

Table of Contents

• Overview
• User Notes with Screen Shots
• Dependencies
• Installation and Configuration
• Description of Sample Files

Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) provides API and tools that automate the mapping between XML documents and Java objects. JAXB makes XML easy to use by compiling an XML schema into one or more Java technology classes. The combination of the schema derived classes and the binding framework enable one to perform the following operations on an XML document:

• Unmarshal XML content into a Java object representation
• Access, update and validate the Java representation against schema constraints
• Marshal the Java representation of the XML content into XML content
  

JAXB gives Java developers an efficient and standard way of mapping between XML and Java code. Java developers using JAXB are more productive because they can write less code themselves and do not have to be experts in XML. Oracle provides comprehensive support for the latest XML standards including JAXB through its Oracle10g XDK. The JAXB class generator part of the Oracle10g XDK allows creation of Java classes based on the XML Schema.

Insurance Profile System

Application Overview

Insurance profile system is an application that allows storage and retrieval of customer profile information. Insurance profile information consists of customer information like customer id, name, gender, age, address, contact information etc. Insurance claim history is also part of the customer profile document. All this information is structured as an XML document. An XML schema defines the document structure. It makes use of complex types to merge the related information in a single complex type. Users can add and modify customer profile records. They can also add and delete claim information to and from the customer profile records.

Technical Overview


The User interface is based on the Java Swing API. The insurance profile information is taken from either of the two datasources, one is from the file system and the other is from the database. Note that only one datasource is active at any point of time. The data retrieved from the files is converted into Java Object using JAXB and File Input/Output stream APIs. Streamsource APIs are used for Marshaling and UnMarshalling the data from the database. The database information is specified in the application itself. An XMLType table in the database is used to store insurance profile records. Whereas in the case of the datasource being the file system, the records are stored as flat files. The figure below (Figure 1) describes the technical overview from a high level perspective:



Figure 1.

Listed below are the features provided by Oracle JAXB implementation as demonstrated in the application under consideration:

• Usage of JAXB class generator
• Usage of Marshaller and Unmarshaller classes
• Marshalling and Unmarshalling from File and StreamSource
• Using JAXB in conjunction with XMLType
• Binding of XML Schema and Complex types
• Using collection types in schema definition (Multiple claim information)
• Unmarshal-time validation

Install the application using the instructions in the "Installation and Configuration" section below. Once you have successfully configured the application, start up to see a screen as shown in Figure 1.1 below. This screen will prompt the user to choose either one of the datasources:

When the user clicks the "Next" button with the default option of "File System" or after changing it to "Database", the user is asked to enter the location of the directory where the sample XML files are stored. This directory contains some sample records that are loaded in the application / database depending on the Data Source that user selects. Refer to Figure 1.2:

Here, enter/select the directory <SAMPLE_HOME>/xml where sample files are provided. If the option selected in Figure 1.1 was "File System" and user clicks on the "Next" button, then the user will be taken to the screen in Figure 1.4 with all the insurance records loaded from the sample files in the provided directory.

If the user selected the "Database" option from the screen shown in Figure 1.1 above and clicks the "Next" button, the user will be asked to enter the database connection information as shown in Figure 1.3 below: Note that files "profError1.xml"  and "profileError2.xml" are not valid and that is the reason you should see the error messages.

When the user clicks on "Next" button from the screen in Figure 1.3, the sample files from the directory provided in Figure 1.2 are loaded into the database table using the connection information provided in Figure 1.3. Then, the same insurance records in the database table are displayed as shown in the Figure 1.4 below:

• XML Developer's Kit (XDK) 10g
• Oracle9i Database version 9.2.0.2 or later
• JDK 1.4.2 or later is required to run this application

Refer to Install.html present in the sample jar for step-by-step instructions on extracting files, installing and configuring the system to successfully run this application.

The directory structure of the JAXBApp.jar is as shown below. JAXBApp is the top-level directory under which all the application files are stored.

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