Object Serialization supports the encoding of objects and the objects reachable from them, into a stream of bytes. Serialization also supports the complementary reconstruction of the object graph from a stream. Serialization is used for lightweight persistence and for communication via sockets or Java Remote Method Invocation (Java RMI). The default encoding of objects protects private and transient data, and supports the evolution of the classes. A class may implement its own external encoding and is then solely responsible for the external format.
Serialization now includes an API that allows the serialized data of an object to be specified independently of the fields of the class and allows those serialized data fields to be written to and read from the stream using the existing protocol to ensure compatiblity with the default writing and reading mechanisms.
