What is the serialVersionUID?

1. Overview

Simply put, the serialVersionUID is a unique identifier for Serializable classes.

This is used during the deserialization of an object, to ensure that a loaded class is compatible with the serialized object. If no matching class is found, an InvalidClassException is thrown.

2. Example

Let’s start by creating a serializable class, and declare a serialVersionUID identifier:

public class AppleProduct implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1234567L;

    public String headphonePort;
    public String thunderboltPort;
    public String lighteningPort;
}

Next, we’ll need two utility classes: one to serialize an AppleProduct object into a String, and another to deserialize the object from that String:

public class SerializationUtility {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        AppleProduct macBook = new AppleProduct();
        macBook.headphonePort = "headphonePort2020";
        macBook.thunderboltPort = "thunderboltPort2020";

        String serializedObj = serializeObjectToString(macBook);
 
        System.out.println("Serialized AppleProduct object to string:");
        System.out.println(serializedObj);
    }

    public static String serializeObjectToString(Serializable o) {
        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(baos);
        oos.writeObject(o);
        oos.close();
        
        return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(baos.toByteArray());
    }
}

public class DeserializationUtility {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        String serializedObj = ... // ommited for clarity
        System.out.println(
          "Deserializing AppleProduct...");
 
        AppleProduct deserializedObj = (AppleProduct) deSerializeObjectFromString(serializedObj);
 
        System.out.println(
          "Headphone port of AppleProduct:" + deserializedObj.getHeadphonePort());
        System.out.println(
          "Thunderbolt port of AppleProduct:" + deserializedObj.getThunderboltPort());
    }
 
    public static Object deSerializeObjectFromString(String s)
      throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
  
        byte[] data = Base64.getDecoder().decode(s);
        ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data));
        Object o = ois.readObject();
        ois.close();
        return o;
    }
}

We begin by running SerializationUtility.java, which saves (serializes) the AppleProduct object into a String instance, encoding the bytes using Base64.

Then, using that String as an argument for the deserialization method, we run DeserializationUtility.java, which reassembles (deserializes) the AppleProduct object from the given String.

The output generated should be similar to this:

Serialized AppleProduct object to string:
rO0ABXNyACljb20uYmFlbGR1bmcuZGVzZXJpYWxpemF0aW9uLkFwcGxlUHJvZHVjdAAAAAAAEta
HAgADTAANaGVhZHBob25lUG9ydHQAEkxqYXZhL2xhbmcvU3RyaW5nO0wADmxpZ2h0ZW5pbmdQb3
J0cQB+AAFMAA90aHVuZGVyYm9sdFBvcnRxAH4AAXhwdAARaGVhZHBob25lUG9ydDIwMjBwdAATd
Gh1bmRlcmJvbHRQb3J0MjAyMA==

Deserializing AppleProduct...
Headphone port of AppleProduct:headphonePort2020
Thunderbolt port of AppleProduct:thunderboltPort2020

Now, let’s modify the serialVersionUID constant in AppleProduct.java, and reattempt to deserialize the AppleProduct object from the same String produced earlier. Re-running DeserializationUtility.java should generate this output. 

Deserializing AppleProduct...
Exception in thread "main" java.io.InvalidClassException: com.baeldung.deserialization.AppleProduct; local class incompatible: stream classdesc serialVersionUID = 1234567, local class serialVersionUID = 7654321
	at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.initNonProxy(ObjectStreamClass.java:616)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readNonProxyDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1630)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readClassDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1521)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1781)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1353)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:373)
	at com.baeldung.deserialization.DeserializationUtility.deSerializeObjectFromString(DeserializationUtility.java:24)
	at com.baeldung.deserialization.DeserializationUtility.main(DeserializationUtility.java:15)

By changing the serialVersionUID of the class, we modified its version/state. As a result, no compatible classes were found during deserialization, and an InvalidClassException was thrown.

3. Conclusion

In this quick article, we demonstrated the use of the serialVersionUID constant to facilitate versioning of serialized data.

As always, the code samples used throughout this article can be found over on GitHub.