Class ObjectStreamClass

public class ObjectStreamClass
extends Object
implements Serializable

Serialization's descriptor for classes. It contains the name and serialVersionUID of the class. The ObjectStreamClass for a specific class loaded in this Java VM can be found/created using the lookup method.

The algorithm to compute the SerialVersionUID is described in Object Serialization Specification, Section 4.6, Stream Unique Identifiers.

Fields

NO_FIELDS

public static final ObjectStreamField[] NO_FIELDS

serialPersistentFields value indicating no serializable fields

Methods

lookup

public static ObjectStreamClass lookup(Class<?> cl)

Find the descriptor for a class that can be serialized. Creates an ObjectStreamClass instance if one does not exist yet for class. Null is returned if the specified class does not implement java.io.Serializable or java.io.Externalizable.

Parameters:

cl - class for which to get the descriptor

Returns:

the class descriptor for the specified class

lookupAny

public static ObjectStreamClass lookupAny(Class<?> cl)

Returns the descriptor for any class, regardless of whether it implements Serializable.

Parameters:

cl - class for which to get the descriptor

Returns:

the class descriptor for the specified class

Since:

1.6

getName

public String getName()

Returns the name of the class described by this descriptor. This method returns the name of the class in the format that is used by the Class.getName() method.

Returns:

a string representing the name of the class

getSerialVersionUID

public long getSerialVersionUID()

Return the serialVersionUID for this class. The serialVersionUID defines a set of classes all with the same name that have evolved from a common root class and agree to be serialized and deserialized using a common format. NonSerializable classes have a serialVersionUID of 0L.

Returns:

the SUID of the class described by this descriptor

forClass

public Class<?> forClass()

Return the class in the local VM that this version is mapped to. Null is returned if there is no corresponding local class.

Returns:

the Class instance that this descriptor represents

getFields

public ObjectStreamField[] getFields()

Return an array of the fields of this serializable class.

Returns:

an array containing an element for each persistent field of this class. Returns an array of length zero if there are no fields.

Since:

1.2

getField

public ObjectStreamField getField(String name)

Get the field of this class by name.

Parameters:

name - the name of the data field to look for

Returns:

The ObjectStreamField object of the named field or null if there is no such named field.

toString

public String toString()

Return a string describing this ObjectStreamClass.

Overrides:

toString in class Object

Returns:

a string representation of the object.