Why Serialization ? What is Serialization ?

Serialization

Serialization is simply turning an existing object into a byte array.

This byte array represents:

·    The class of the object

·    The version of the object

·    The internal state of the object.

This byte array can then be used between JVM's running the same code to transmit/read the object, Serialization is used in below cases:

·    

    Persistence: If you want to store the state of a particular operation in a database, it can be easily serialized to a byte array, and stored in the database for later retrieval.

·   Deep Copy: If you need an exact replica of an Object, and don't want to go to the trouble of writing your own specialized clone() class, simply serializing the object to a byte array, and then de-serializing it to another object achieves this goal.

·   Caching: Really just an application of the above, but sometimes an object takes 10 minutes to build, but would only take 10 seconds to de-serialize. So, rather than hold onto the giant object in memory, just cache it out to a file via serialization, and read it in later when it's needed.

·   Cross JVM Synchronization: Serialization works across different JVMs that may be running on different architectures.