13.8. The XMLBinding Class

The XMLBinding class is a special utility wrapper class around the Smooks runtime. It is designed specifically for reading and writing XML data to and from Java Object models using nothing more than standard <jb:bean> configurations. It allows users to leverage frameworks like JAXB or JiBX (read and write between Java and XML using a single configuration), but with the added advantage of being able to easily handle multiple versions of an XML schema/model in a single Java model. Users can read and write multiple versions of an XML message into a single Java object model. Messages can be transformed from one version to another by reading the XML into the common Java object model using an XMLBinding instance configured for one version of the XML, and then writing those Java objects back out using an XMLBinding instance configured for the other version of the XML.