What is a serialVersionUID and why should we use it

Question

Eclipse issues warnings when a serialVersionUID is missing.

The serializable class Foo does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long

What is serialVersionUID and why is it important? Please show an example where missing serialVersionUID will cause a problem.

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

SerialVersionUID is a unique identifier for each class, JVM uses it to compare the versions of the class ensuring that the same class was used during Serialization is loaded during Deserialization.

Specifying one gives more control, though JVM does generate one if you don't specify. The value generated can differ between different compilers. Furthermore, sometimes you just want for some reason to forbid deserialization of old serialized objects [backward incompatibility], and in this case you just have to change the serialVersionUID.

Hope this is helpful!!