Deserializing a file not serialized using Java

Question

Hello ,
I am trying to deserialize and read a file which has been previously serialized using VC++. Is there a way to read a file serialized by VC++ using Java. When i read using ObjectInputStream, exception is thrown (StreamCorruptedException). The file structure of the serialized file is as below:
PC Records(Array)
ObjectRecord
Name;(string)
SecurityLevel;(unsigned char)
SecurityGroup;(string)
ScanTime;(unsigned char)
ElementNum;(int)
PCDevice;(unsigned char)
m_SerNum[5];(unsigned char)
m_DeviceChanCount; (unsigned char)
m_ModelID; (unsigned char)
m_ChanNum; (unsigned char)
m_LastBlock; (unsigned short)
m_ScanTime; (unsigned char)
m_Owner; (unsigned char)
m_Gain; (unsigned char)
PCPath;(string)
m_PCName;(string)
a; (unsigned char)
b; (unsigned char)
could somebody help me deserialize and read this file using Java. Any help and sample source code is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This can't be read from Java Serialization API 'cause Java Serialization API has it's on propietary format (that's one reazon why J2SE 1.4 introduced XML serialization)
If you need to read a file serialized in VC++, you will need to implement the code to read the file in Java.
If you only need to read the file secuentially (one record after the other loaded into memory) you can use a java.io.FileInputStream, and wrap it in a java.io.BufferInputStream to optimize reading.
The interface java.io.DataInput have a lot of methods you can use to read the fields (read signed ints, unsigned ints, chars, bytes). You can use then java.io.DataInputStream to wrap InputStream and read this kind of fields. You have to take special care with chars and strings, 'cause they are unicode in java and probably only ASCII on the VC++ generated file. Probably strings will have to be read byte after byte until the \0 mark is reached, unless string fields have a predefined length, in this case you can read [length] bytes from the input stream and create a string from this array.
If you need random access then you need java.io.RandomAccessFile, it also implements java.io.DataInput, so you have the methods to read ints, shorts, bytes, etc.
UTF strings are strings using UTF encoding, so probably this method will not help much in this case.
Rivas