Question

I want my app to store multiple objects locally for later use.

Now, my problem is that I know how to load an object from an ObjectInputStream by taking the entire file(federations.dat). Is there a way for me to load say object WHERE id = N from "federations.dat" ? Or do I have to create separate files for each object?

This is my load method:

public static Object load(Context ctx, String filename) throws FileNotFoundException 
{
    Object loadedObj = null;
    InputStream instream = null;

    instream = ctx.openFileInput(filename);

    try {
        ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(instream);
        loadedObj = ois.readObject();
        return loadedObj;
        
    } catch (StreamCorruptedException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return null;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

Any suggestions come to mind ?

Answer 1

An extention to @Jan ‘s code, fixing the problem of keeping ois open if an exception is thrown, along with some minor issues.

public static ArrayList<Object> load(Context ctx, String filename) throws FileNotFoundException {
    InputStream instream = ctx.openFileInput(filename);

    ArrayList<Object> objects = new ArrayList<Object>();

    try {
        ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(instream);
        try{
            Object loadedObj = null;
            while ((loadedObj = ois.readObject()) != null) {
                objects.add(loadedObj);
            }

            return objects;
        }finally{
            ois.close();
        }

    } catch (StreamCorruptedException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}