Storing List of objects using DataType.SERIALIZABLE in ormlite android

Question

How to save an ArrayList using ORMlite in android my model is as follows

class Model{
    @DatabaseField
    public String type = "";

    @DatabaseField
    public String name = "";

    @DatabaseField
    public Date dateTime = null;

    @DatabaseField
    ArrayList<Item> items = null;
}

And Item class has

class Item{
     @DatabaseField
     String itemName;
     ...
}

I am getting the following exception :

java.sql.SQLException: ORMLite can't store unknown class class
      java.util.ArrayList for field 'items'.   Serializable fields must specify
      dataType=DataType.SERIALIZABLE

But when i specify my field as

@DatabaseField(dataType = DataType.SERIALIZABLE)
ArrayList<Item> items = null;

The compiler gives a error called field cannot be resolved please help me with this.

Answer 1

I've just changed the error message to be:

ORMLite does not know how to store class java.util.ArrayList for field 'items'. Use another class, custom persister, or to serialize it use dataType=DataType.SERIALIZABLE

Maybe that makes more sense? ORMLite is trying to say that it doesn't know how to store lists in a field. If you want to store collection of items then maybe you should take a look at the foreign-collection documentation.