Help using Jakarta Commons Digester

Hello there,

I am using the Jakarta Commons Digester to facilitate XML-to-Object mapping in an init servlet.

I created the following:

1. myapp-rules.xml (containing rules for Digester)

2. attributes.xml (actual config file that I need to load & parse, and then place the objects in a data structure).

3. The POJO with setters and getters which holds the config file's info (after parsed through the init servlet).

4. A helper class which adds the POJOs to an ArrayList.

5. The init servlet which places myapp-rules.xml into the CLASSPATH and then loads the attributes.xml config file. This is where I think I need help on how to add it to the helper class.

myapp-rules.xml


Here's my web.xml file:


attributes.xml


Here's the the Attributes POJO:


The helper class which I want to put the AttributeBean POJO inside an ArrayList:



Here's the init servlet (this is where I need help on how to add POJO to Helper class (array list):
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.URL;

import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;

import org.apache.commons.digester.Digester;
import org.apache.commons.digester.xmlrules.DigesterLoader;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

import edu.ucsd.security.affiliates.model.AttributeBean;
import edu.ucsd.security.affiliates.model.AttributeBeanHelper;

public class XmlConfigInitServlet extends HttpServlet {

private AttributeBean attributeBeans;
private AttributeBeanHelper itemList;

public void init() throws ServletException {
String prefix = getServletContext().getRealPath("/");
String file = getInitParameter("xml-config-file");
File xmlConfigFile = new File(prefix + file);
if (!xmlConfigFile.exists()) {
System.out.println("attributes.xml not found, "
+ xmlConfigFile.getAbsolutePath());
}
try {

// Configure Digester from XML ruleset
URL rules = getClass().getResource("./attribute-rules.xml");
Digester digester = DigesterLoader.createDigester(rules);

// Push empty List onto Digester's Stack
//List attributes = new ArrayList();
//digester.push(attributes);

itemList = new AttributeBeanHelper();
itemList.addTypes(attributeBeans);
digester.push(itemList);

// Parse the XML document
InputStream input = new FileInputStream(xmlConfigFile);
digester.parse(input);

Logger.getLogger(this.getClass()).warn("After parsing the digester.");

} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
[/CODE]

For some odd reason, when my program tries to call the following XmlConfigInitServlet.itemList.addTypes(attributeBeans); I get the following exception:



Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on what I am doing wrong?

Sincerely,

JD