Re: Serialized compatibility

[S�rgio Carvalho <sc...@criticalsoftware.com>]

On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 20:47:37 -0800
Pier Fumagalli <pi...@betaversion.org> wrote:

> Arnaud Le Hors <le...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> > [Dane, this kind of questions really belongs to xerces-j-dev]
> > 
> >> Dane Foster wrote:
> >> 
> >> Does anyone from the Xerces-J development team know if future versions
> >> of the Node implementing classes and their respective children (i.e.
> >> Element),  will be compatible with serialized versions of today's
> >> classes?  In simple words, if I serialized a Node or any of it's
> >> children today, will I be able to de-serialize at any arbitrary time
> >> in the future without a problem?
> > 
> > I wouldn't bet on that. Very little effort is actually put into the Java
> > serialization code. On top of it, you'd be tying yourself to a
> > particular DOM implementation. Serialization to XML is the only safe
> > path here...
> 
> For once I fully agree with Arnoud on that :) :) I wouldn't tie myself down
> to the VM serialization for DOM trees...

The VM default serialization is defined in the standards as short-term storage. Don't rely on it for long term storage - a time-frame where the API might change is definitely long term. 

Things are different, of course, if classes implement their own serialization. It then depends on the implementation.

--
Sergio Carvalho
---------------
scarvalho@criticalsoftware.com

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you