How to write Array of Object to a file?

Hi

I have an array of objects:

Student[] studentarray;

how do I save studentarray to file?

David.

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

Here is a class the does the writing, but i am getting exceptions saying
its not serialized.etc.

import java.io.*;

public class WriteStudentData {


/** Creates a new instance of WriteStudentData */
public WriteStudentData() {
}

// method will take the student list and save it to student.dat file.
public void save(Student[] student)
{
try {
ObjectOutputStream objOut = new ObjectOutputStream(new
FileOutputStream("student.dat"));
objOut.writeObject(student);
objOut.close();
}
catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

}
}

DL wrote:

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

Please do not top-post, not even to your own posts.

DL wrote:I doubt very much that any error message included the word "etc." Are you
certain that you copied and pasted the error messages correctly?
Read the Javadocs on java.io.Serializable. It will explain why you cannot use
ObjectOutputStream yet for the Student type.

Incidentally you get better results on newsgroups if you post an SSCCE.
Without the source for the Student class in hand we have to guess (correctly)
why you cannot serialize the class.

BTW, there are other ways to write information to a file than serialization.

--
Lew

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

Lew wrote:Absolutely. In fact you should be very carefull when using serialization.
For example if each student has a reference to his class (school class
that is) and the school class object has references to the students that
attend that class you may save the entire class when you want to save
one student. Do that for each student in the class and you have a huge
overhead.
The other ways are often better...XML, SQL database, flat text files,
binary files. There are lots to choose from.

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

Lew wrote:what is the best way to do this? any suggestions?

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

DL wrote:That depends on a lot of things. An XML file i very easily read by
humans and portable but often not very scalable. A database is very fast
and scalable. A binary file can be easy to work with (or very very hard).
What would be the typical usage ? And how many records would the file hold ?

re: How to write Array of Object to a file?

Robert Larsen wrote:There are gazillion ways to emit data. The simplest is to open a file for
writing, say in a variable 'wr' -

import java.io.PrintWriter;
...
PrintWriter wr = new PrintWriter( someFileName );
...
wr.println( foo.getProperty().toString() );

Of course, 'toString()' in most cases will not give you what you want, but
it's a start.

Really you should just read the Javadocs on the java.io package, and the tutorial:
<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/io/index.html>

--
Lew