I have created an XML schema (foo.xsd) and used xjc to create my binding classes for JAXB. Let's say the root element is "collection" and I am writing N "document" objects, which are complex types.

Because I plan to write out large XML files, I am using Stax to write out the "collection" root element, and JAXB to marshal document subtrees using Marshaller.marshal(JAXBElement, XMLEventWriter). This is the approach recommended by jaxb's unofficial user's guide: https://jaxb.dev.java.net/guide/Different_ways_of_marshalling.html#Marshalling_into_a_subtree

My question is, how can I validate the XML while it's being marshalled? If I bind a schema to the JAXB marshaller (using Marshaller.setSchema()), I get validation errors because I am only marshalling a subtree (it's complaining that it's not seeing the "collection" root element"). I suppose what I really want to do is bind a schema to the Stax XMLEventWriter or something like that.

Any comments on this overall approach would be helpful. Basically I want to be able to use JAXB to marshal and unmarshal large XML documents without running out of memory, so if there's a better way to do this let me know.