Re: object serialisation

From:

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:13:31 -0500

Message-ID:

<4ce5c12a$0$23760$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>

On 18-11-2010 19:07, feng wrote:

I can't understand the object serialisation concepts. The definition
is attached below. objects are already sequence of bits stored in a
file or memory buffer. so why all references define serialisation as a
mean to convert an object to a sequence of bits? I thought casting a
block of bits is more enough to resurrect the object or any other data
structure. any clarification please?

In computer science, in the context of data storage and transmission,
serialization is the process of converting a data structure or object
into a sequence of bits so that it can be stored in a file or memory
buffer, or transmitted across a network connection link to be
"resurrected" later in the same or another computer environment.[1]
When the resulting series of bits is reread according to the
serialization format, it can be used to create a semantically
identical clone of the original object.

Serialization is a little bit more complex than just reading/writing
to/from memory.

One problem is references that most likely are stored as an
address. But just because that address within the senders JVM are
1000 does not mean that it will be 1000 in the receivers JVM.
That need to be fixed.

Fields marked with the transient keyword are not serialized.
So they need to be excluded.

It is required to verify that the object and all objects
referenced from it are indeed serializable. That requires
the process to go through everything.

Plus all the stuff that I can not think of right now.

Arne
a