serialization

[jignesh soni]

why do we need to serialize an object ?

[Rob Spoor]

To store it on the hard disk, or send it through the network mostly.

[jignesh soni]

I need more detais with a scanario and underlying mechanism to understand this concept. If I am sending a query, then it goes through HTML page, at the other end it is received by servlet, servlet transfers the query to database thr JDBC and the result is displayed by JSP. Where does Serialization come in picture in the process ?

Pls explain

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by jignesh soni:
Pls explain

Please use real words when posting to the forums. Abbreviations such as "pls" in place of "please" only serve to make your posts more difficult to read and less likely to generate useful responses.

Please read this for more information.

thanks,
bear
JavaRanch sheriff

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by jignesh soni:
Where does Serialization come in picture in the process ?

It doesn't. In the scenario you described, no object serialization takes place.

[jignesh soni]

can you please explain in what scenario, serialization will come in play ?

[Bear Bibeault]

Personally, I've never found a need to use serialization directly in my 10 years of Java programming. But I have used technologies that use it under the covers. For example, when using RMI, serialization is used to send data over the network. Or when replicating a servlet session across a cluster, the objects in the session are serialized.

[fred rosenberger]

you can write code so that when your process shuts down, it serializes some objects, and saves them to your disk drive. then, a day, a week, a year later, you restart your process. you read the file, and can re-create the objects and have them be in the same state as before you shut down.

[Abhinav Srivastava]

i have seen it being used for deep cloning.

[Campbell Ritchie]

There is an article somewhere on the Java website about serialization and deep cloning. I think this is it. I have mentioned it before on these boards, and:

There is a performance overhead to using serialization like this.

There is a subtle difference in the results, but I can't remember what it is. Maybe the article will help. Have a look.