Reliably convert any object to String and then back again

Question

Is there a reliable way to convert any object to a String and then back again to the same Object? I've seen some examples of people converting them using toString() and then passing that value into a constructor to reconstruct the object again but not all objects have a constructor like this so that method wont work for all cases. What way will?

Answer 1

Yes, it is called serialization!

 String serializedObject = "";   // serialize the object  try {      ByteArrayOutputStream bo = new ByteArrayOutputStream();      ObjectOutputStream so = new ObjectOutputStream(bo);      so.writeObject(myObject);      so.flush();      serializedObject = bo.toString();  } catch (Exception e) {      System.out.println(e);  }   // deserialize the object  try {      byte b[] = serializedObject.getBytes();       ByteArrayInputStream bi = new ByteArrayInputStream(b);      ObjectInputStream si = new ObjectInputStream(bi);      MyObject obj = (MyObject) si.readObject();  } catch (Exception e) {      System.out.println(e);  } 

Answer 2

This is the code:

try {     ByteArrayOutputStream bo = new ByteArrayOutputStream();     ObjectOutputStream so = new ObjectOutputStream(bo);     so.writeObject(stringList);     so.flush();     redisString = new String(Base64.encode(bo.toByteArray()));        }  catch (Exception e) {     e.printStackTrace(); }  try {     byte b[] = Base64.decode(redisString.getBytes());      ByteArrayInputStream bi = new ByteArrayInputStream(b);     ObjectInputStream si = new ObjectInputStream(bi);     List<String> stringList2 = (List<String>)si.readObject();     System.out.println(stringList2.get(1));           }  catch (Exception e) {     e.printStackTrace();          }