Serialization and deserialization are two important concepts in programming that allow objects to be easily stored, transmitted, and reconstructed. Serialization is the process of converting an objects state into a format that can be stored or transmitted and reconstructed later. This format is usually a byte stream that represents the objects state, which can later be reconstructed to create a new copy of the object. Deserialization, on the other hand, is the reverse process of serialization. It involves taking a byte stream and converting it back into an object.
In Java, only the objects of those classes can be serialized which are implementing java.io.Serializable interface. Serializable is a marker interface that is used to "mark" Java classes so that objects of these classes may get certain capability. Other examples of marker interfaces are Cloneable and Remote.
Serialization and deserialization are platform-independent processes, which means that you can serialize an object on one platform and deserialize it on a different platform. The serialization and deserialization process is performed using the ObjectOutputStream and ObjectInputStream classes in Java.
Some common uses of serialization include saving an objects state to a file, sending an object over a network, or storing an object in a database. Deserialization is used to extract a data structure from a series of bytes.
In summary, serialization and deserialization are important concepts in programming that allow objects to be easily stored, transmitted, and reconstructed. Serialization is the process of converting an objects state into a format that can be stored or transmitted, while deserialization is the reverse process of converting a byte stream back into an object.
