XSD Display empty elements for null data

Question

I'm working on soap webservices. i want to know how to display response xml with empty elements when the data is null.

Eg:

My XSD:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xs:element name="TrackInfo">
  <xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
  <xs:element name="Name" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="Length" type="xs:string"  />
  <xs:element name="AverageSpeed" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
 </xs:element>

Sample XML document:

<TrackInfo>
<Name>Barcelona</Name>
<Length>4591</Length>
<AverageSpeed>20</AverageSpeed>
</TrackInfo>

Java Code to set values

TrackInfo trackinfo= new TrackInfo();
trackinfo.setName("Barcelona");
trackinfo.setLength("4591");
trackinfo.setAverageSpeed("20");

There are cases where i may not have data to set and in that case i want to display xml with empty elements. Otherwise i need to handle null cases for huge code.

TrackInfo trackinfo= new TrackInfo();
trackinfo.setName(null);
trackinfo.setLength(null);
trackinfo.setAverageSpeed(null);

<TrackInfo>
<Name></Name>
<Length></Length>
<AverageSpeed></AverageSpeed>
</TrackInfo>

if i try with nillable=true i get response as

<TrackInfo>
<Name xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
<Length xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-  instance"/>
<AverageSpeed xsi:nil="true" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"/>
</TrackInfo>

Please advise how to proceed for any other possibilities

Thanks.

Answer 1

Can you try to set the below

TrackInfo trackinfo= new TrackInfo();
trackinfo.setName("");
trackinfo.setLength("");
trackinfo.setAverageSpeed("");

The response would have empty tags.

Answer 2

You can add default = "" to your <xs:element> tags. Try using this XSD:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified"
 xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <xs:element name="TrackInfo">
        <xs:complexType>
            <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element name="Name" type="xs:string" default = "" />
                <xs:element name="Length" type="xs:string" default = "" />
                <xs:element name="AverageSpeed" type="xs:string" default = "" />
            </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
    </xs:element>
</xs:schema>