Sending an object over the Internet

Question

I define a class, and then I instate an object of that class type. I want to send this object to another Java application running on a different computer transparently. What is the best technology to accomplish this?

Answer 1

You'll want to start by looking into serialization with the Java Serializable interface. Sun has a good article on it called Discover the secrets of the Java Serialization API.

Refer to the Java Sockets tutorial for information on actually transferring the serialized object over the network.

Answer 2

you can create object streams using the java API and send any serializable object. but you'll have to mind that these go unencrypted through the network:

on the sender's side:

CustomObject objectToSend=new CustomObject();
Socket s = new Socket("yourhostname", 1234);
ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(s.getOutputStream());
out.writeObject(objectToSend);
out.flush();

and on the receiving end:

ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(1234);
Socket s = server.accept();
ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(s.getInputStream());
CustomObject objectReceived = (CustomObject) in.readObject();