In XB empty string processing is different for simple and complex types. I.e. for the following element <e></e> the result will be an empty string if e is of a simple type and null if e is of a complex type. It's null for the complex types because otherwise elements of complex types would always get non-null text data which was undesirable. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4172517#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...