Serialization (deserialization)

• The activity of flattening an object or a connected set of objects into a serial form that is suitable for storing on the disk or transmitting in a message
• Include information about the class of each object and a version number
• Handles: references to other objects are serialized as handles
• Each object is written once only  
• Example (n1)
• Make use of Java serialization
  • ObjectOutputStream.writeObject, ObjectInputStream.readObject

The use of reflection

• Reflection : The ability to enquire about the properties of a class, and also enables classes to be created from their properties.
• Reflection makes it possible to do serialization (deserialization) in a completely generic manner