Talk:Serialization
any chance some one in the know could add someting about serializable objects in .NET (direct competition of Java?).
i would be much obliged.
jaspio
What about solutions in Perl (e.g. FreezeThaw) and/or using YAML (YAML)?
isn't the term "marshaling" (with one 'l') instead of "marshalling"? the version with the double-l is only a noun, while the former has verb forms. therefore, all references to "marshall" should really be "marshal". for example, "marshaling" or "unmarshaled".
- Either is acceptable. Personally I like the double-l form better.
We could add something about cloning using serialization. I wrote a Java example here : http://www.krunch.be/vrac/cours/04-05-2cinf/poo/CloneWithSerialization.java
Writing out data structures in plain text ASCII is itself a serialization and any programming language that can handle text can do this. For example Java's toString() function is often used to serialize file formats rather than using the Serializable interface. The advantage of this primitive form of serialization is that it is simple. For example in C++ serialization is also implemented using streams. However streams have a lower level of data perspective. From an data objects perspective the end of file character is no important so implementing serialization while avoiding the pitfalls of streams is dangerous. However if serialization is implemented with C++ string then the string manages the memory buffer itself and the programmer is free to focus on just writing and reading the data structure. Or when nastly low level events occure they can be managed much better. In this case the primitive technology is better.
This kind of serialization I believe is a byte stream encoding. However it uses some universal character format such as ASCII so all kinds of programms and languages can understand it. For many file formats in applications space is not the issue, for example saving a users preferences in each file is often not that costly.
Also I belief Microsofts registary is a form of serialization. Qt a Gui framework also supports the registary concept accross multiple platforms.
Could someone please consider writing this perspective in the Serialization documentation. I am not confident about how to integrate this into the existing doc. As a programmer I came to this conclusion the hard way by writing with C++ streams, and then went back to the basic text files after much grief. So I am looking to separate serialization with low level implementation and managing text files is a valid way to do it.