Question

I override a createSocket() method in my test cases to pas in a mocked Socket. After doing this the objects aren’t serializable anymore.

Here’s a example of what doesn’t work.

Foo.java

import java.io.Serializable;

public class Foo implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 3109852436898487119L;

    public void bar() {
        System.out.println("Foo");
    }
}

FooTest.java

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;

import junit.framework.TestCase;

import org.junit.Test;

public class FooTest extends TestCase {

    // this passes
    @Test
    public void testFooIsSerializable() throws IOException {
        Foo foo = new Foo();

        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(baos);
        out.writeObject(foo);
    }

    // this throws a java.io.NotSerializableException
    @Test
    public void testFooIsStillSerializableAfterBarIsOverridden()
            throws IOException {

        // Eclipse gives me the warning "The serializable class  does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long"
        // Adding it doesn't help
        Foo foo = new Foo() {
            @Override
            public void bar() {
                System.out.println("Bar");
            }
        };

        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(baos);
        out.writeObject(foo);
    }
}

The stack trace when running FooTest with JUnit:

java.io.NotSerializableException: FooTest
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.writeObject0(ObjectOutputStream.java:1164)
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.defaultWriteFields(ObjectOutputStream.java:1518)
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.writeSerialData(ObjectOutputStream.java:1483)
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.writeOrdinaryObject(ObjectOutputStream.java:1400)
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.writeObject0(ObjectOutputStream.java:1158)
    at java.io.ObjectOutputStream.writeObject(ObjectOutputStream.java:330)
    at FooTest.testFooIsStillSerializableAfterBarIsOverridden(FooTest.java:33)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at junit.framework.TestCase.runTest(TestCase.java:168)
    at junit.framework.TestCase.runBare(TestCase.java:134)
    at junit.framework.TestResult$1.protect(TestResult.java:110)
    at junit.framework.TestResult.runProtected(TestResult.java:128)
    at junit.framework.TestResult.run(TestResult.java:113)
    at junit.framework.TestCase.run(TestCase.java:124)
    at junit.framework.TestSuite.runTest(TestSuite.java:232)
    at junit.framework.TestSuite.run(TestSuite.java:227)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.JUnit38ClassRunner.run(JUnit38ClassRunner.java:83)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:49)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

What is the problem with this? I have to admit, that I didn’t dive too deep into Java’s Serializable interface and more or less just followed Eclipse’s quick fixes.

To be more specific to my implementation:

I have a class that should send an instance of itself via a ObjectOutputStream.

Is this a fundamentally wrong approach?

Answer 1

The problem is you have an anonymous inner class, which by definition contains a (compiler-generated) reference to the instance of the outer class (FooTest) which created it. Since serialization by default includes all members of the object, the runtime tries to serialize the FooTest object too – and that is not serializable (as it was not meant to be). This is attested by the error message:

java.io.NotSerializableException: FooTest

Thus if you turn your anonymous class into an explicit static inner class, the problem should go away.