When deserializing in Java, how do you know if there is more objects left?

[DWW]

I'm curious how you tell if there are objects left in a stream when you are deserializing objects.

is the .available() method the only way? it indicates bytes but I guess if bytes is > 0 then there should be data left for sure eh?

Only one data type is being serialized and put into the same file (many of them) but I don't know how many and must deserialize.

 

[DWW]

Hrm I'm not sure if available will work... I tried it and it said I had 0 bytes in the file when clearly there was a serialized object.

I'm thinking since I don't know the exact number of objects serialized perhaps it is best to use something like a collection then serialize it... that way all references the collection makes also get serialized and to read the objects and deserialize its as easy as one readObject?

thoughts anyone?

 

[Templeton]

the readObject method should return null when there's nothing left to read.

 

[DWW]

Originally posted by: Templeton
the readObject method should return null when there's nothing left to read.

hrm I have the available() way working now but is it a poor design? I'm thinking that doing a while readObject != null is the better of the two?

 

[Templeton]

Originally posted by: DWW

Originally posted by: Templeton
the readObject method should return null when there's nothing left to read.

hrm I have the available() way working now but is it a poor design? I'm thinking that doing a while readObject != null is the better of the two?

That's how I've always done any file reading.

 

[DWW]

Originally posted by: Templeton

Originally posted by: DWW

Originally posted by: Templeton
the readObject method should return null when there's nothing left to read.

hrm I have the available() way working now but is it a poor design? I'm thinking that doing a while readObject != null is the better of the two?

That's how I've always done any file reading.

Hrm looks like that method is throwing EOFException ;(

It will work but I don't want to catch any exceptions...should be a way to do it without I'd think.

 

[DWW]

btw I'm doing this:

Object temp = null;

while ((temp = in.readObject()) != null)
.... stuff ...