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javaserializationserialversionuid

How to generate serialVersionUID programmatically in Java?

I am working on a project that generates Java files. I'd like to be able to optionally add the serialVersionUID as you would with the serialver tool.

Is there a way to do this when I generate the Java code, or will I need to ask the user of the tool to provide UIDs manually? To be clear, I'm not looking to do this automatically through Eclipse or the serialver tool, but to do it via Java itself.

Solution

  • There is a version of the serialver tool source available from OpenJDK. It all comes down to this call:

    ObjectStreamClass c = ObjectStreamClass.lookup(MyClass.class);
long serialID = c.getSerialVersionUID();
System.out.println(serialID);

    In JDK 6 at least it returns the same number with serialver tool.