Java - Modifying serialVersionUID of binary serialized object

Question

A few months back I serialized a java.io.Serializable object into a file. Now I need to read the contents, but since then the serialVersionUID has changed, and now I\'m get

Answer 1

I recently found myself in a similar situation--I had some serialized objects that I had to read, the serialVersionUID of those objects was different than the newest version and, in my case, there were a couple of different serialVersionUIDs stored in the file for the same class (stored at different times, obviously). So I didn't have the luxury of modifying the class and setting its serialVersionUID; I actually had to go in and modify the stored data.

What I figured out (by reading the java.io source code) is that an object gets serialized by first storing the class name (using writeUTF()) and then immediately after using writeLong() to save the serialVersionUID.

My solution was to catch the exception then go back, look for the class name, and immediately after the class name replace the old serialVersionUID with the new.