Resolving cyclic references in jaxb

Question 1

As you add @XmlTransient on a private property, you should change your XmlAccessType (default to XmlAccessType.PUBLIC_MEMBER) to XmlAccessType.PROPERTY

PUBLIC_MEMBER is the default access type in JAXB. It means that a JAXB implementation will generate bindings for: public fields, annotated fields, properties

code copied from W A :

@WebService(endpointInterface = "com.mycompany.ws.interfaces.IMyWS")
public class MyWS implements IMyWS {

@XmlRootElement
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.PROPERTY)
public static class Class1 {

    private Class2 class2;

    public Class1() {

    }

    public Class1(Class2 refClass) {
        class2 = refClass;
    }

    @XmlTransient
    public Class2 getClass2() {
        return class2;
    }

    public void setClass2(Class2 class2) {
        this.class2 = class2;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return this.getClass().getSimpleName();
    }

}

@XmlRootElement
public static class Class2 {

    private Class1 class1;

    public Class2() {

    }

    public Class1 getClass1() {
        return class1;
    }

    public void setClass1(Class1 class1) {
        this.class1 = class1;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return this.getClass().getSimpleName();
    }
}

public List<Class1> cyclicTest() {
    //I create an instance of each class, having them a cyclic reference to the other instance
    Class2 class2 = new Class2();
    Class1 class1 = new Class1(class2);
    class2.setClass1(class1);
    return Arrays.asList(class1);
}


public static void main(String[] args) throws JAXBException {

    JAXBContext ctx = JAXBContext.newInstance(Class1.class);
    Marshaller m = ctx.createMarshaller();
    m.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
    List<Class1> class1s = new MyWs().cyclicTest();

    for (Class1 c1 : class1s){
        m.marshal(c1, System.out);
    }

}

Question 2

Using @XmlID and @XmlIDREF should solve your problem.

Here's what I did:

I added a String field to Class 1 to be used as an id, and annotated it with @XmlID. Then, I annotated the setClass1() method with @XmlIDREF. My test is in the main method below.

/*
 * Interface implementation
 */
@WebService(endpointInterface = "com.mycompany.ws.interfaces.IMyWS")
public class MyWS implements IMyWS {

    @XmlRootElement
    public static class Class1 {

        @XmlID
        private String id;

        private Class2 class2;

        public Class1() {
            this.id = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
        }

        public Class1(Class2 refClass) {
            this();
            class2 = refClass;
        }

        public Class2 getClass2() {
            return class2;
        }

        public void setClass2(Class2 class2) {
            this.class2 = class2;
        }

        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return this.getClass().getSimpleName();
        }

    }

    @XmlRootElement
    public static class Class2 {

        private Class1 class1;

        public Class2() {

        }

        public Class1 getClass1() {
            return class1;
        }

        @XmlIDREF
        public void setClass1(Class1 class1) {
            this.class1 = class1;
        }

        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return this.getClass().getSimpleName();
        }
    }

    @Override
    public List<Class1> cyclicTest() {
        //I create an instance of each class, having them a cyclic reference to the other instance
        Class2 class2 = new Class2();
        Class1 class1 = new Class1(class2);
        class2.setClass1(class1);
        return Arrays.asList(class1);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws JAXBException {

        JAXBContext ctx = JAXBContext.newInstance(Class1.class);
        Marshaller m = ctx.createMarshaller();
        m.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
        List<Class1> class1s = new MyWS().cyclicTest();

        for (Class1 c1 : class1s){
            m.marshal(c1, System.out);
        }

    }

}

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<class1>
    <id>e9e53e73-9a96-4c7c-b919-3ed3d7aa4c5e</id>
    <class2>
        <class1>e9e53e73-9a96-4c7c-b919-3ed3d7aa4c5e</class1>
    </class2>
</class1>

Question 3

Adding to the answer by W Almir, to make generation of unique IDs for objects simpler (no need to add code to constructors), annotate a method that returns the id. For example:

@XmlID
public String getId()
{
    return Integer.toString(System.identityHashCode(this));
}

This seems to work not only for converting cyclical graphs of Java objects to XML but also for converting XML to cyclical graphs of Java objects.