CODEWITHSUNDEEP
java
Chinna
Chinna

Reputation: 31

Serialization vs String format

Can any one suggest which way is better? Storing the object in serialized form or read the filecontent as String and construct the object.

Simply,
1.I have a string (str,str1,str2,str3,....) like this in my filestore. Read this file string and construct java object (ex creating the Linkedlist obj based on the comma separated).

2.Retrieve the Linkedlist obj from the file store using the serialization.

Reading the serialized object from filestore or construct the obj from string. Which one is the best way?

i am taking the linkedlist here is just for sample. It may be differ, from the string i have to construct some JSONObject,JsonArray formats... JSON is not serialized obj, i will do it some other way to make as serializable.

For a lengthy string which one is best, serialize or construct the obj from string?

All thing are related to Java

Please advice me

Regards
S.Chinna

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3146

Answers (4)

Stephen C
Stephen C

Reputation: 718836

The advantages of Java ObjectStream serialization are:

  • You have minimal code to write, and minimal thinking to do when designing your serialization format.
  • Dealing with complicated (graph-structured) networks of objects is simple.
  • The end result should be type-safe and bug-free (assuming that you don't implement your own custom read/write object methods, etc)

The main disadvantage of Java ObjectStream serialization is that it is fragile in the face of changes to the classes that you've serialized. Dealing with this can be difficult. (By contrast, a hand-parsed text format is largely immune to this issue ... and problems are easier to fix.)

Upvotes: 0

Vladislav Rastrusny
Vladislav Rastrusny

Reputation: 29985

Well, if you care about speed - go for binary serialization. If you want to easily read serialized objects - go for string-based (json for example). And here is a performance test for various serializers:

http://code.google.com/p/thrift-protobuf-compare/wiki/BenchmarkingV2

Upvotes: 0

Daniel
Daniel

Reputation: 28084

It depends on the complexity of the objects you have to store. If they are simple, or if you have the time to write to write an own Writer and Reader for your objects, I would always go with a custom text format, because they are most the most easy to debug.

If you have a server understanding text commands, you could even connect with putty or telnet and test your server!

But if you have to transport complex object structures, that might even change during development, I would definitely go with some form of serialization. Please note here that Javas default serialization is NOT a good candidate for a communication protocol, because of the large overhead they produce in defining classes over and over again. Better go with JBossSerialization if you want something API compatible to Javas build in classes, or go with JSON, if you don't have to transport much binary data.

Upvotes: 0

Peter Lawrey
Peter Lawrey

Reputation: 533530

The advantage of using a text format is that you can read and maintain the data in a simple text editor.

The advantage of using a binary format like Object Serialization is you don't have to worry about seperators e.g. what if a string contains a ,

Either approach you suggest is likely to be efficient enough (though I would use an ArrayList)

EDIT: If you have multiple strings a better approach may be to put them on a seperate line each. This way you don't need to worry about ,, and can read/edit/version the file easier.

List<String> list = FileUtils.readLines(file);

As you can see, you would be able to read the entire file in one line.

Upvotes: 2

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