NullPointerException in XMLEntityManager when trying to compile an xml schema with xjc / ant

Question

I'm seeing an exception, seemingly inside some sun classes, when trying to compile an xml schema.

I've compiled this schema many times before, so I don't suspect the schema of being problematic. I think something may have changed in my java VM, perhaps with the latest upgrade. I have no doubt that upgrading to jaxb 2.0 would fix the problem, since I tried it. However, we have to stick to jaxb 1.0 due to a bug in the JAXB-RI XJC.

Macbook: ant -f build-response.xml 
Buildfile: /Users/matt/workspace/resources/build-response.xml

compilexjc:
     [echo] Compiling the schema...
      [xjc] Compiling file:/Users/matt/workspace/schemas/response/partner_response.xsd and others

BUILD FAILED
/Users/matt/workspace/resources/build-response.xml:34: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.reset(XMLEntityManager.java:1550)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.BasicParserConfiguration.reset(BasicParserConfiguration.java:503)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.opti.SchemaParsingConfig.reset(SchemaParsingConfig.java:541)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.opti.SchemaParsingConfig.parse(SchemaParsingConfig.java:408)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.opti.SchemaParsingConfig.parse(SchemaParsingConfig.java:491)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.opti.SchemaDOMParser.parse(SchemaDOMParser.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.traversers.XSDHandler.getSchemaDocument(XSDHandler.java:1802)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.traversers.XSDHandler.parseSchema(XSDHandler.java:531)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.XMLSchemaLoader.loadSchema(XMLSchemaLoader.java:556)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.xs.XMLSchemaLoader.loadGrammar(XMLSchemaLoader.java:523)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLGrammarPreparser.preparseGrammar(XMLGrammarPreparser.java:202)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.reader.xmlschema.parser.SchemaConstraintChecker.check(SchemaConstraintChecker.java:78)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.GrammarLoader.loadXMLSchema(GrammarLoader.java:330)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.GrammarLoader.load(GrammarLoader.java:127)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.GrammarLoader.load(GrammarLoader.java:76)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.XJCTask._doXJC(XJCTask.java:358)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.XJCTask.doXJC(XJCTask.java:307)
    at com.sun.tools.xjc.XJCTask.execute(XJCTask.java:247)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:292)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:435)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:456)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1393)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTarget(Project.java:1364)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.helper.DefaultExecutor.executeTargets(DefaultExecutor.java:41)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTargets(Project.java:1248)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Main.runBuild(Main.java:851)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.Main.startAnt(Main.java:235)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:280)
    at org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:109)

Total time: 1 second

My build-response.xml file looks like this:

<project name="ERRequest" default="compilexjc" basedir=".">
 <target name="init">
  <tstamp/>
 </target>

<!-- Configure the context path for this application -->
<property name="appname" value="WPI" />
<property name="apppath" value="." />
<property name="path" value="${apppath}"/>

<property name="tmp" value="../tmp_response"/>

<!-- Configure properties to access the Manager application -->
<property file="build.properties"/>


<path id="classpath">
<fileset dir="${LIBS_JARPATH}" includes="*.jar" />
<fileset dir="${JAXB_LIB}" includes="*.jar" />
</path>

<!-- Configure the custom Ant tasks for the Manager application -->
<taskdef name="xjc" classname="com.sun.tools.xjc.XJCTask">
  <classpath refid="classpath" />
</taskdef>


<!--compile Java source files-->
<target name="compilexjc" description="Generate Java source files from XSD">
  <mkdir dir="${tmp}"/>
 <echo message="Compiling the schema..." />
<xjc target="${tmp}" package="com.mycompany.binding.response"> <!--exception is thrown here-->
    <schema dir="../schemas">
        <include name="response/response.xsd"/>            
          <include name="response/partner_response.xsd"/>
      </schema>
      <produces dir="${tmp}" includes="**/*.java"/>
  </xjc>
  <copy todir="${tmp}">
    <fileset dir="${tmp}">
        <include name="**/*.properties"/>
    </fileset>
</copy>
</target>

The XJC classes are located in jaxb-xjc.jar which is in the classpath. Here is the meta info for that jar:

Implementation-Version: 1.0.5
Specification-Title: Java Architecture for XML Binding
Specification-Version: 1.0

Answer 1

The solution was to upgrade jaxb to version 2.2.7. I couldn't resolve it in jaxb 1.0.

In fact it was more complicated than that, since there is a bug in the JAXB-RI 2.2.7 which I had to patch. See this question and answer.