How to convert XML to java.util.Map and vice versa

One option would be to roll your own. It would be fairly simple to do:

Document doc = getDocument();
Element root = doc.createElement(rootName);
doc.appendChild(root);
for (Map.Entry<String,String> element : map.entrySet() ) {
    Element e = doc.createElement(element.getKey());
    e.setTextContent(element.getValue());
    root.appendChild(e);
}
save(doc, file);

and the load is an equally simply getChildNodes and a loop. Sure it has a bit of boiler plate that the XML Gods demand but it is at most 1 hours work.

Or you could look at Properties if you are not too fused about the format of the XML.

Here the converter for XStream including unmarshall

public class MapEntryConverter implements Converter{
public boolean canConvert(Class clazz) {
    return AbstractMap.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
}

public void marshal(Object value, HierarchicalStreamWriter writer, MarshallingContext context) {
    AbstractMap<String,String> map = (AbstractMap<String,String>) value;
    for (Entry<String,String> entry : map.entrySet()) {
        writer.startNode(entry.getKey().toString());
        writer.setValue(entry.getValue().toString());
        writer.endNode();
    }
}

public Object unmarshal(HierarchicalStreamReader reader, UnmarshallingContext context) {
    Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();

    while(reader.hasMoreChildren()) {
        reader.moveDown();
        map.put(reader.getNodeName(), reader.getValue());
        reader.moveUp();
    }
    return map;
}

XStream!

Updated: I added unmarshal part as requested in comments..

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.Converter;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.MarshallingContext;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.UnmarshallingContext;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.HierarchicalStreamReader;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.HierarchicalStreamWriter;

import java.util.AbstractMap;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map<String,String> map = new HashMap<String,String>();
        map.put("name","chris");
        map.put("island","faranga");

        XStream magicApi = new XStream();
        magicApi.registerConverter(new MapEntryConverter());
        magicApi.alias("root", Map.class);

        String xml = magicApi.toXML(map);
        System.out.println("Result of tweaked XStream toXml()");
        System.out.println(xml);

        Map<String, String> extractedMap = (Map<String, String>) magicApi.fromXML(xml);
        assert extractedMap.get("name").equals("chris");
        assert extractedMap.get("island").equals("faranga");

    }

    public static class MapEntryConverter implements Converter {

        public boolean canConvert(Class clazz) {
            return AbstractMap.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
        }

        public void marshal(Object value, HierarchicalStreamWriter writer, MarshallingContext context) {

            AbstractMap map = (AbstractMap) value;
            for (Object obj : map.entrySet()) {
                Map.Entry entry = (Map.Entry) obj;
                writer.startNode(entry.getKey().toString());
                Object val = entry.getValue();
                if ( null != val ) {
                    writer.setValue(val.toString());
                }
                writer.endNode();
            }

        }

        public Object unmarshal(HierarchicalStreamReader reader, UnmarshallingContext context) {

            Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();

            while(reader.hasMoreChildren()) {
                reader.moveDown();

                String key = reader.getNodeName(); // nodeName aka element's name
                String value = reader.getValue();
                map.put(key, value);

                reader.moveUp();
            }

            return map;
        }

    }

}