RandomAccessFile

Question

This class does not have a writeObject or readObject method like the ObjectOutputStream and the ObjectInputStream
How am I supposed to write and read objects using random access files? Is there anyway besides just manually writing every primitive data to the file and then reading it again the same way?
I did something insane like this:
     try
               RandomAccessFile file;
               file = new RandomAccessFile(fileName, "r");
               ntot = "";
               for(int i = 0; i < 10; i ++)
                    //temp = file.readChar();
                    //data[count++] = temp;
                    //record = new Person("Person number" + i , i);
                    record = new Person();
                    record.read(file);
                    n1 = record.getName();
                    n2 = record.getAge();
                    ntot += n1 + n2 + "\n";
          catch(IOException ioException)
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "no file available");
               //     stuff = new String(data).replace('\0' , ' ');
          }The person object looks like this:
class Person
     String name;
     int age;
     public Person()
          name = "";
          age = 0;
     public Person(String name1, int age1) throws IOException
          name = name1;
          age = age1;
     public String getName(){return name;}
     public int getAge(){return age;}
     public void write(RandomAccessFile file) throws IOException
          //StringBuffer buffer = null;
          //buffer = name;
          file.writeChars(name);
          file.writeInt(age);
     public void read(RandomAccessFile file) throws IOException
          char temp;
          int counter = 0;
          do
               temp = file.readChar();
               name += name + temp;
               counter++;
          }while(counter != 3);
          age = file.readInt();
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, ""+ counter);
     }But it doesn't work well...I do get some data, but It gives me weird characters and stuff.
How can we use random access files by just manipulating objects?

Answer 1

so you're saying that the only way to manipulate
objects in files is by using suquential files?
What am I supposed to do then? use JDBC?Either that or use a data model you load completely from a file, manipulate "in memory", and store again when you done.
Byte-wise manipulation is exactly what you need to do otherwise, but serialized objects aren't supposed to be manipulated - it's possible, but quite difficult.