Re: byte representation of a class

From: Kevin McMurtrie (mcmurtri_at_dslextreme.com)
Date: 09/14/04 

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 23:31:48 -0700

In article <cd478661.0409131114.6829da2d@posting.google.com>,
 Benjamin.von.Eicken@rwth-aachen.de (Benjamin von Eicken) wrote:

> Hi
>
> How can I get a byte representation of
> a java class?
> I do not want to use the class file.
> Is it possible to get access to the
> byte code?
> ObjectOutputStream does it somehow,
> but I do not want to use serializable
> objects only and I do not want a
> stream.
> So I want to store an instance of an
> object but not in a stream and not
> necessary serializable.
> Is it possible?

No.

> And if, how?
>
> regards
>
> Benjamin von Eicken

Objects use references to other objects to store data. A shallow copy
will loose nearly all data while a deep copy would gather every object
in the heap. Other than a core dump of the entire JVM, there is no way
to make a portable byte representation of a class without serializing
it. Serialization saves relevant data and directives that can be used
to reconstruct a very similar object later.

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