Track changes of a object in Jswing Application

Question

Hi Folks,
I have a jswing application which loads a object(*xml decoder*) when it gets opened.
I may make changes to this object(*xml decoder*).
Finally when terminating the application i need to check if any changes made to object(*xml decoder*)
if there are any changes i need to write object(*xml decoder*) to xml encoder.
Just like microsoftword/powerpoint.
How do i compare old object with the recent object.
Any suggestions

Answer 1

Thanks for your response friend,
1)yes it is a swing application
2)yes it is a bean.xmlencoder
3)yes am changing object returned by xml decoder
i have java bean classes to be written to Xml encoder.
public class TestContainer implements  Cloneable {
     @Override
    public TestContainer clone() {
     try {
       final TestContainer testcontainer = (TestContainer) super.clone();
        testcontainer.mTests = new ArrayList(mTests.size());
       for (Test tests : mTests) {
          testcontainer.mTests.add(tests.clone());
        testcontainer.mTopics=new ArrayList(mTopics.size());
        for (Topic topics : mTopics) {
          testcontainer.mTopics.add(topics.clone());
       return  testcontainer;
     } catch (CloneNotSupportedException cnse) {
       throw new Error(cnse);
    private List<Topic> mTopics;
    private List<Test> mTests;
    public List<Topic> getTopics() {
        return mTopics;
    public List<String> getTopicNames() {
        List<String> lTopicNamesList = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (Topic lTopic : mTopics) {
            lTopicNamesList.add(lTopic.getTopicName());
        return lTopicNamesList;
      public List<String> getTestNames() {
        List<String> lTestNamesList = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (Test lTest : mTests) {
            lTestNamesList .add(lTest.getTestName());
        return lTestNamesList;
    public void setTopics(List<Topic> pTopics) {
        this.mTopics = pTopics;
    public List<Test> getTests() {
        return mTests;
    public void setTests(List<Test> pTests) {
        this.mTests = pTests;
   // public static void main(String args[]) {
      //  TestContainer sampleTestFile = new TestContainer();
        // Set Topics
      /// List<Topic> lTopics = new ArrayList<Topic>();
      //  sampleTestFile.setTopics(lTopics);
        //Set Tests
       // List<Test> lTests = new ArrayList<Test>();
        //sampleTestFile.setTests(lTests);
       // try {
          //  XMLEncoder e = new XMLEncoder(
                 //   new BufferedOutputStream(
                 //   new FileOutputStream("Empty.xml")));
            //e.writeObject(sampleTestFile);
           // e.close();
       // } catch (Exception lEx) {
   so finally i need to write this testconatiner object to java.bean.XmlEncoder in front end application(AdminTool.java) if there are any changes.
How and where should i override equals method