Bug 247464

background: 
XmlElement annotation required=false is ignored if the field is a primitive


Example;

@XmlElement(required=false)
public int value;

this is exposed as
<xs:element name="value" type="xs:int"/>

Doing the same on Integer;

@XmlElement(required=false)
public Integer value;

<xs:element name="value" type="xs:int" minOccurs="0"/>


There should have been a warning, or hint to rewrite the int primitive to Integer in this case, because the annotation does not what the user may expect.

I have been bitten by this twice now, since I forgot this rule, and I needed to add some functionality in a webservice that should be backward compatible to existing clients, thus I need to add a field that is not required (minOccurs="0") and clients broke horribly when adding this as a primitive, and I thought the annotation would work.