Serializable on ArrayList losing some data

Question

I have an ArrayList of Employee objects where Employee class implements Serializable. I am using this code to write lists to a file:

ArrayList<Employee> empList = new ArrayList<>();
  FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("EmpObject.ser");
  ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
  // write object to file
  empList .add(emp1);
  empList .add(emp2);
  oos.writeObject(empList);

  empList .add(emp3);

  oos.writeObject(empList);
}

If I try to de-serialize it I am just getting first two objects not the 3rd one. Can anyone please try why is it?

edit1: If I add all elements at once everything is fine but not the way I did first. What is the difference?

ArrayList<Employee> empList = new ArrayList<>();
  FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("EmpObject.ser");
  ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
  // write object to file
  empList .add(emp1);
  empList .add(emp2);
  empList .add(emp3);
  oos.writeObject(empList);
}

After this I have 3 elements

Answer 1

As GhostCat and uaraven already mentioned reset does not what you are expecting it to do and you should have a look at a tutorial on serialization and maybe consider using sth. else if this isn't fitting your use case.

Your code could look as follows if creating a new FileOutputStream:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class SerializationTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
        String path = "EmpObject.ser";

        ArrayList<Employee> empList = new ArrayList<>();
        ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(path));

        empList.add(emp1);
        empList.add(emp2);
        oos.writeObject(empList);

        empList.add(emp3);
        // Create a new FileOutputStream to override the files content instead of appending the new employee list
        oos = new ObjectOutputStream( new FileOutputStream(path));
        oos.writeObject(empList);

        ObjectInputStream objectinputstream = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream(path));
        List<Employee> readCase = (List<Employee>) objectinputstream.readObject();

        System.out.println(readCase);
    }
}