Objects serialization

Question

Suppose I am serializing a custome object of class
class Employee implements java.io.Serializable{
long id;
String name;
String department;
//setter and getter methods for each attribute
if i am serializing the object of Employee
Employee key = new Employee();
key.setId(1000);
key.setName("xyz");
key.setDepartment("aaa");
//using serial binding for key, instead of tuple binding - application requirement
SerialBinding binding = new SerialBinding(new StoredClassCatalog(db),Employee.class);
DatabaseEntry keyEntry = new DatabaseEntry();
binding.objectToEntry(key, keyEntry);
- what is order of serilization, represented by byte array, of each attribute of object?
- is the byte array contains first, bytes of id then name and so on?
- If this object key is used to find the record, will it use entire byte array representation of serialized object to compare or it will first, use byte array representation of 'id' then 'name' and so on... to compare

Answer 1

I don't want to use custom tuple binding for custom
objects as any arbitrary objects can be stored in
database. In this case which binding I should use. It
seems that TupleBinding supports only java primitive
objects.I don't understand why you're using arbitrary objects for keys. If you do that, I don't know of any way to get a meaningful sort order. So you might as well use SerialBinding.
If you can think of a way to use arbitrary objects for keys and implement a binding that provides a meaningful sort order, for your application at least, please do so. You are free to implement the EntryBinding and EntityBinding interfaces in any way you choose. It is up to you.
Any clue for my query? It is unreasonable for you to expect answers so quickly. I suggest that you read the source code in the com.sleepycat.bind package and try to get answers on your own.
--mark