XML Empty tag to Empty string in the object during xml deserialization

I am using jackson-dataformat-xml:2.6.2

If an empty tag is available in the xml and the respective field in the object is a string, it would be nice to have jackson populate the field with empty string rather than with null value.

Ex:

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(
        name = "",
        propOrder = {"first", "last"}
)
@XmlRootElement(
        name = "name"
)
public class Name {
private String first;
private String last;
}

xml:

<name>
<first>Ryan</first>
<last></last>
</name>

mapper creation:

new XmlMapper(XMLInputFactory2.newFactory(), XMLOutputFactory2.newFactory());

I would expect

Name name = mapper.readValue(xml, Name.class)

name.getLast().equals(“”) to return true but name.getLast() ends up being null.

Any help would be appreciated.

[jlous]

Any idea when the PR might be merged if approved?

[itisvamsi]

Is there any fix for this which is available?