How to serialize an object into a string

Question

Sergio:

You should use BLOB. It is pretty straighforward with JDBC.

The problem with the second code you posted is the encoding. You should additionally encode the bytes to make sure none of them fails.

If you still want to write it down into a String you can encode the bytes using java.util.Base64.

Still you should use CLOB as data type because you don't know how long the serialized data is going to be.

Here is a sample of how to use it.

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

/** 
 * Usage sample serializing SomeClass instance 
 */
public class ToStringSample {

    public static void main( String [] args )  throws IOException,
                                                      ClassNotFoundException {
        String string = toString( new SomeClass() );
        System.out.println(" Encoded serialized version " );
        System.out.println( string );
        SomeClass some = ( SomeClass ) fromString( string );
        System.out.println( "\n\nReconstituted object");
        System.out.println( some );


    }

    /** Read the object from Base64 string. */
   private static Object fromString( String s ) throws IOException ,
                                                       ClassNotFoundException {
        byte [] data = Base64.getDecoder().decode( s );
        ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream( 
                                        new ByteArrayInputStream(  data ) );
        Object o  = ois.readObject();
        ois.close();
        return o;
   }

    /** Write the object to a Base64 string. */
    private static String toString( Serializable o ) throws IOException {
        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream( baos );
        oos.writeObject( o );
        oos.close();
        return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(baos.toByteArray()); 
    }
}

/** Test subject. A very simple class. */ 
class SomeClass implements Serializable {

    private final static long serialVersionUID = 1; // See Nick's comment below

    int i    = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
    String s = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP";
    Double d = new Double( -1.0 );
    public String toString(){
        return  "SomeClass instance says: Don't worry, " 
              + "I'm healthy. Look, my data is i = " + i  
              + ", s = " + s + ", d = " + d;
    }
}

Output:

C:\samples>javac *.java

C:\samples>java ToStringSample
Encoded serialized version
rO0ABXNyAAlTb21lQ2xhc3MAAAAAAAAAAQIAA0kAAWlMAAFkdAASTGphdmEvbGFuZy9Eb3VibGU7T
AABc3QAEkxqYXZhL2xhbmcvU3RyaW5nO3hwf////3NyABBqYXZhLmxhbmcuRG91YmxlgLPCSilr+w
QCAAFEAAV2YWx1ZXhyABBqYXZhLmxhbmcuTnVtYmVyhqyVHQuU4IsCAAB4cL/wAAAAAAAAdAAQQUJ
DREVGR0hJSktMTU5PUA==


Reconstituted object
SomeClass instance says: Don't worry, I'm healthy. Look, my data is i = 2147483647, s = ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP, d = -1.0

NOTE: for Java 7 and earlier you can see the original answer here

How about writing the data to a ByteArrayOutputStream instead of a FileOutputStream?

Otherwise, you could serialize the object using XMLEncoder, persist the XML, then deserialize via XMLDecoder.

Thanks for great and quick replies. I will gives some up votes inmediately to acknowledge your help. I have coded the best solution in my opinion based on your answers.

LinkedList<Patch> patches1 = diff.patch_make(text2, text1);
try {
    ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    ObjectOutputStream os = new ObjectOutputStream(bos);
    os.writeObject(patches1);
    String serialized_patches1 = bos.toString();
    os.close();


    ByteArrayInputStream bis = new ByteArrayInputStream(serialized_patches1.getBytes());
    ObjectInputStream oInputStream = new ObjectInputStream(bis);
    LinkedList<Patch> restored_patches1 = (LinkedList<Patch>) oInputStream.readObject();            



        // patches1 equals restored_patches1
    oInputStream.close();
} catch(Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

Note i did not considered using JSON because is less efficient.

Note: I will considered your advice about not storing serialized object as strings in the database but byte[] instead.

Java8 approach, converting Object from/to String, inspired by answer from OscarRyz. For de-/encoding, java.util.Base64 is required and used.

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectInputStream;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Base64;
import java.util.Optional;

final class ObjectHelper {

  private ObjectHelper() {}

  static Optional<String> convertToString(final Serializable object) {
    try (final ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
      ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(baos)) {
      oos.writeObject(object);
      return Optional.of(Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(baos.toByteArray()));
    } catch (final IOException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
      return Optional.empty();
    }
  }

  static <T extends Serializable> Optional<T> convertFrom(final String objectAsString) {
    final byte[] data = Base64.getDecoder().decode(objectAsString);
    try (final ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data))) {
      return Optional.of((T) ois.readObject());
    } catch (final IOException | ClassNotFoundException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
      return Optional.empty();
    }
  }
}

XStream provides a simple utility for serializing/deserializing to/from XML, and it's very quick. Storing XML CLOBs rather than binary BLOBS is going to be less fragile, not to mention more readable.

How about persisting the object as a blob