What is an .episode file..?

Question

what is a .episode file in JAXB..? Is it generated by the JAXB or is it a configuration file that we\'d manipulate to avoid regeneration of the same classes by JAXB..?

Answer 1

I'll add some trivia.

• Actually, .episode files are just normal binding files (that's why they work with xjc -b).
• They can be generated with a special built-in plugin (that's what -episode does).
• If placed in a JAR under the META-INF/sun-jaxb.episode path, you can do xjc b.xsd a.jar - XJC will scan JARs for episode files then an use the as binding files automatically.
• All of this beauty works fine with Maven (maven-jaxb2-plugin). However, with later version you can use binding files from JAR artifacts even without episodes.