Integer as Map key is displayed as String

You have had a look at http://castor.org/how-to-map-a-hashtable.html to get an idea how to provide a mapping for collection type(s) 'map' or hashtable, right ?

Yes, the first example is similar to my problem. But it need another level of XML tag, which is MyItem.

What should the exact XML look like in your case ?

For your Parent and Child class types, that is.

<parent>
<child id="1"/>
<child id="2"/>
</parent>

no extra tags. This is just for example.

It looks like I still do not understand your intentions. The instructions at http://castor.org/how-to-map-a-hashtable.html clearly show how to map a collection with type 'map' or 'hashtable'. What exactly is it that you require to be different from that basic setup ?

I am sorry, I am busy these days, and I will give my feed back in a few days. Thanks for your patience.

For my example

xml:

<parent>
<child id="1"/>
<child id="2"/>
</parent>

I wanna get he following result, there is a map in class Parent, in this map, the value is the Child class represented by the <child> node, and the key is the id of this child node. For above example,

1 -> Child class with ID equals to 1
2 -> Child class with ID equals to 2

While in the howto, an extra node is added, like below:

<parent>
<MyChild id="1">
<child id="1"/>
</MyChild>
<MyChild id="1">
<child id="2"/>
</MyChild>
</parent>

This is not what I want.

Am I missing something ??

I don't think that's actually possible, as in a mapping for a map, you have to provide a MapItem instance (unless you accept default values). Have a look at

http://svn.castor.codehaus.org/browse/castor/castor/trunk/xmlctf/tests/MasterTestSuite/mapping/collections/Maps

for several samples related to mapping maps.