Fw: XML for Java serialization

[Oren Ben-Kiki]

Tyler Baker <tyler at infinet.com> wrote:
>> I don't think that this problem is particularly hard. Java has
references,
>> XML has ID references. You can easily model one with the other.
>>
>> The only probably is that Java objects serialized as documents are going
>> to be <VERY> <VERBOSE>.
>
>Well it is pretty simple to say IDs are the answer.  They are indeed a
possibility.  Try
>coming up with an implementation which resolves circular references and can
be rebuilt back
>into its original in-memory data structure.  Implementation is not as
simple as it sounds...


Actually from what I recall about the Java serialization specs it should be
pretty easy to override all the relevant methods to produce XML-ized output
instead of the current one. One could even easily write a converter from the
existing serialized format to an XML-ized one and back. It's pretty well
behaved. The problem of IDs is already solved by the existing serialization
implementation - you just need to make use of it.

This might present an interesting alternative to the Coins approach... Just
implement two streams: SerializedToXmlFilterOutputStream and
XmlToSerializedFilterInputStream. Otherwise use the built-in Java
functionality. I doubt whether that would be more then a week or two of work
to implement, for someone familiar with the specs.

Have fun,

    Oren Ben-Kiki


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