how to serialize class?

Question

When I insert a List into mongodb, there is a problem:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: can't serialize class mongodb.Person
    at org.bson.BasicBSONEncoder._putObjectField(BasicBSONEncoder.java:234)
    at org.bson.BasicBSONEncoder.putIterable(BasicBSONEncoder.java:259)
    at org.bson.BasicBSONEncoder._putObjectField(BasicBSONEncoder.java:198)
    at org.bson.BasicBSONEncoder.putObject(BasicBSONEncoder.java:140)
    at org.bson.BasicBSONEncoder.putObject(BasicBSONEncoder.java:86)
    at com.mongodb.DefaultDBEncoder.writeObject(DefaultDBEncoder.java:27)
    at com.mongodb.OutMessage.putObject(OutMessage.java:142)
    at com.mongodb.DBApiLayer$MyCollection.insert(DBApiLayer.java:252)
    at com.mongodb.DBApiLayer$MyCollection.insert(DBApiLayer.java:211)
    at com.mongodb.DBCollection.insert(DBCollection.java:57)
    at com.mongodb.DBCollection.insert(DBCollection.java:87)
    at com.mongodb.DBCollection.save(DBCollection.java:716)
    at com.mongodb.DBCollection.save(DBCollection.java:691)
    at mongodb.MongoDB.main(MongoDB.java:45)

the class Person is defined as follows:

class Person{
    private String name;
    public Person(String name){
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
}

The program is :

        DBCollection coll = db.getCollection("test");
        DBObject record = new BasicDBObject();
        List<Person> persons= new ArrayList<Person>();
        persons.add(new Person("Jack"));
        record.put("person", persons);
        coll.save(record);

I can't find the answer from google, so please help me.

Answer 1

Just implement Serializable interface in Person class.

Also it will be good to define a serialVersionUID in your class.

AFAIK, while creating POJO class in java, the class should be serializable, if it is going to be transfered over some stream, have a default constructor, and allows access to properties/fields using getter and setter methods.

You might be interested in reading this: Discover the secrets of the Java Serialization API