Injest XML (JAXB) with Apache CXF on Weblogic 9.2.3

Question

I have tried all of the suggestions I can find out there, but still can not get Weblogic and CXF to play along when injesting XML.
CXF is deployed and working in production.
Now that I want add a method to XML results, I declared with JAX-RS like this:
@POST
@Consumes( "application/xml")
@Path( "{order_id}/" + ANALYSE_PARAM )
public void reportResult( @PathParam( "order_id") int orderId, AnalyseResults analyseResults ) {
// NOTE: AnalyseResults is a JAXB object which we've created (i.e. mappings to Java provided)
However, when this method is invoked, I get this:
, I get this:
2011-10-26 14:02:46,766 WARN org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.impl.WebApplicationExceptionMapper - WebApplicationException has been caught : no cause is available
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unable to access unsupported property javax.xml.stream.supportDTD
at weblogic.xml.stax.ConfigurationContextBase.check(ConfigurationContextBase.java:60)
at weblogic.xml.stax.ConfigurationContextBase.setProperty(ConfigurationContextBase.java:54)
at weblogic.xml.stax.XMLStreamInputFactory.setProperty(XMLStreamInputFactory.java:280)
at org.apache.cxf.staxutils.StaxUtils.createXMLInputFactory(StaxUtils.java:195)
at org.apache.cxf.staxutils.StaxUtils.getXMLInputFactory(StaxUtils.java:166)
at org.apache.cxf.staxutils.StaxUtils.createXMLStreamReader(StaxUtils.java:1164)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.provider.JAXBElementProvider.unmarshalFromInputStream(JAXBElementProvider.java:214)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.provider.JAXBElementProvider.doUnmarshal(JAXBElementProvider.java:180)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.provider.JAXBElementProvider.readFrom(JAXBElementProvider.java:149)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.utils.JAXRSUtils.readFromMessageBody(JAXRSUtils.java:1013)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.utils.JAXRSUtils.processParameter(JAXRSUtils.java:594)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.utils.JAXRSUtils.processParameters(JAXRSUtils.java:559)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.interceptor.JAXRSInInterceptor.processRequest(JAXRSInInterceptor.java:230)
at org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.interceptor.JAXRSInInterceptor.handleMessage(JAXRSInInterceptor.java:88)
at org.apache.cxf.phase.PhaseInterceptorChain.doIntercept(PhaseInterceptorChain.java:263)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.ChainInitiationObserver.onMessage(ChainInitiationObserver.java:118)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.http.AbstractHTTPDestination.invoke(AbstractHTTPDestination.java:208)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.ServletController.invokeDestination(ServletController.java:223)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.ServletController.invoke(ServletController.java:166)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.CXFNonSpringServlet.invoke(CXFNonSpringServlet.java:113)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.AbstractHTTPServlet.handleRequest(AbstractHTTPServlet.java:184)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.AbstractHTTPServlet.doPost(AbstractHTTPServlet.java:107)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:763)
at org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.AbstractHTTPServlet.service(AbstractHTTPServlet.java:163)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:283)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:175)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3244)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2010)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:1916)
I've done all the reading out there and taken all the suggestions:
- the woodstox and stax2 JARs are on my classpath
- the weblogic-application.xml file has been modified to include (a number of varieties have been tried):
<prefer-application-packages>
          <package-name>javax.jws.*</package-name>
          <package-name>javax.xml.*</package-name>
          <package-name>org.apache.*</package-name>
</prefer-application-packages>
I understand the root of the issue: the System properties / JAR files which are first read by Weblogic force the loading of the weblogic.xml.stax.XMLStreamInputFactory as "the way" to create StAX InputFactories.
But ... that Factory (for whatever reason) is incompatible with the way that CXF invokes it.
So ... is there ANY way to get WebLogic to allow CXF to use an alternate parser?

Answer 1

A support ticket (SR 3-4866617511) with Oracle has confirmed that the Weblogic StAX parser has a defect. A patch is available for WLS 10mp2 (and possibly for 9.2.4).
However, it is also possible to work around with a different StAX implementation.
Our choice was Woodstox and after putting the JARs (Woodstox and StaX2 mentioned below plus the xml-apis.jar and a xerces implementation JAR) in WEB-INF/lib and removing the changes to weblogic-application.xml (below), the magic was changing WEB-INF/weblogic.xml file (as described in http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs92/programming/classloading.html )to include:
<container-descriptor>
<servlet-reload-check-secs>-1</servlet-reload-check-secs>
<prefer-web-inf-classes>true</prefer-web-inf-classes>
</container-descriptor>
Why does this work?
By using the "prefer-web-inf-classes" node, the WL Classloader looks first in the JAR files of the Web Application (rather than it's own classes). In this case it finds the META-INF/services/javax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory from the Woodstox JAR (rather than the one from weblogic.jar). Note how this is not just about loading classes from the WEB-INF/lib JARs first ... it also affects how Weblogic interacts with the JAR Service Provider Interface (SPI ... http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/sound/SPI-intro.html).
However, the XercesImpl.jar is becomes necessary because when running without it, the following error occurs:
javax.xml.datatype.FactoryFinder:Using context class loader: weblogic.utils.classloaders.ChangeAwareClassLoader@1a3c1d6 finder: weblogic.utils.classloaders.CodeGenClassFinder@488280 annotation: appsdirtbiis_dir@btb-ws/ic
javax.xml.datatype.FactoryFinder:found null in $java.home/jaxp.properties
javax.xml.datatype.FactoryFinder:loaded from fallback value: org.apache.xerces.jaxp.datatype.DatatypeFactoryImpl
<Nov 8, 2011 11:58:41 AM EST> <Error> <HTTP> <BEA-101017> <[weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext@e02837 - appName: '_appsdir_tbiis_dir', name: '/btb-ws/ic', context-path: '/btb-ws/ic'] Root cause of ServletException.
java.lang.Error: javax.xml.datatype.DatatypeConfigurationException: Provider org.apache.xerces.jaxp.datatype.DatatypeFactoryImpl not found
Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace
>
THAT issue is due to the fact that the javaee-5.0.5-api.jar's implementation of javax.xml.datatype.DatatypeFactory provides org.apache.xerces.jaxp.datatype.DatatypeFactoryImpl (rather than com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.datatype.DatatypeFactoryImpl which is the fallback for the JDK 1.5 implementation that ships with WL 9.2) as the fallback value.
However, this mechanism is only used because none of the JARs (either in my app or in the standard WL distro) contain an file named "META-INF/services/java.xml.datatype.DatatypeFactory" which points to an existing Xerces implementation.
The xml-apis.jar was necessary because of unit test I was running on the package. YMMV with the xml-apis.jar.