Xstream and workaround for using reserved keywords as XML attributes. ("class")

Question

I'm trying to read an XML like this to an object using XStream:

    <behavior id="id384781" class="ChangeAttributeAction" enabled="true">
      <attributes>
        <text id="name">Change Attribute</text>
        <text id="bundleName">ChangeAttribute.behavior</text>
        <text id="targetAttribute">game.devices.touches.touch1.y</text>
        <text id="RHS">
          <expression>
            <string>acos(x)</string>
          </expression>
        </text>
      </attributes>
    </behavior>

Everything is working as they should except the class="ChangeAttributeAction" part.

I have in my Behavior class:

@XStreamAlias("class")
@XStreamAsAttribute
String classAtt = "";

Even tough I'm aliasing the field name, it gives the error:

Exception in thread "main" com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: ChangeAttributeAction : ChangeAttributeAction

---- Debugging information ----

message : ChangeAttributeAction

cause-exception : com.thoughtworks.xstream.mapper.CannotResolveClassException

cause-message : ChangeAttributeAction

class : projectmerger1.Behaviors

required-type : projectmerger1.Behaviors

converter-type : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter

It used to work somehow, but now it doesn't. I used to treat objects differently but I cannot find out what I'm doing different to effect this. Also upon my research ->link<- I learned that trying NO_REFERENCE mode might work, but it didn't in my case.

Answer 1

I solved it by adding:

xstream.aliasSystemAttribute("", "class");

I have no idea why it works, but it works. Thanks anyway :)