Help Desk Ticket Reference: https://na7.salesforce.com/500A0000007ASa2
Workaround: Workaround Exists
Workaround Description: Use Java binding with a HashMap instead of using the DomModelCreator:

	<jb:bean beanId="item" class="java.util.HashMap" createOnElement="response/item">
		<jb:value data="response/item/*" />
	</jb:bean>

Then, use the 'unsafe_expr!default_expr' (${item.personalnummer!"not available"}) syntax inside the Freemarker template. 
project_key: SOA

Let's suppose we have the following input document:

      <response>
         <item>
            <titel>Prof. Dr. med.</titel>
            <anrede>Herr</anrede>
            <vorname>Max</vorname>
            <nachname>Mustermann</nachname>
         </item>
         <item>
            <personalnummer>124545</personalnummer>
            <titel>Dr.</titel>
            <anrede>Mr</anrede>
            <vorname>John</vorname>
            <nachname>Doe</nachname>
         </item>     
      </response>

processed by a DomModelCreator on the 'item' element, and then passed to a Freemarker template. Inside the freemarker template the ${item.xxx} syntax is used. This fails for the 'personalnummer' element here, as it is missing on the first record.

Using ${item.personalnummer!"not available"}, as shown in the Freemarker docs [1], fails with the following error:

  Caused by: freemarker.core.NonStringException: Error on line 2, column 3 in personFrag.ftl
  Expecting a string, date or number here, Expression item.anrede is instead a freemarker.ext.dom.NodeListModel


[1] http://freemarker.org/docs/dgui_template_exp.html#dgui_template_exp_missing_default