How to serialize a class with an interface?

Question

I have never done much with serialization, but am trying to use Google's gson to serialize a Java object to a file. Here is an example of my issue:

public interface Animal {
    public String getName();
}


 public class Cat implements Animal {

    private String mName = "Cat";
    private String mHabbit = "Playing with yarn";

    public String getName() {
        return mName;
    }

    public void setName(String pName) {
        mName = pName;
    }

    public String getHabbit() {
        return mHabbit;
    }

    public void setHabbit(String pHabbit) {
        mHabbit = pHabbit;
    }

}

public class Exhibit {

    private String mDescription;
    private Animal mAnimal;

    public Exhibit() {
        mDescription = "This is a public exhibit.";
    }

    public String getDescription() {
        return mDescription;
    }

    public void setDescription(String pDescription) {
        mDescription = pDescription;
    }

    public Animal getAnimal() {
        return mAnimal;
    }

    public void setAnimal(Animal pAnimal) {
        mAnimal = pAnimal;
    }

}

public class GsonTest {

public static void main(String[] argv) {
    Exhibit exhibit = new Exhibit();
    exhibit.setAnimal(new Cat());
    Gson gson = new Gson();
    String jsonString = gson.toJson(exhibit);
    System.out.println(jsonString);
    Exhibit deserializedExhibit = gson.fromJson(jsonString, Exhibit.class);
    System.out.println(deserializedExhibit);
}
}

So this serializes nicely -- but understandably drops the type information on the Animal:

{"mDescription":"This is a public exhibit.","mAnimal":{"mName":"Cat","mHabbit":"Playing with yarn"}}

This causes real problems for deserialization, though:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: No-args constructor for interface com.atg.lp.gson.Animal does not exist. Register an InstanceCreator with Gson for this type to fix this problem.

I get why this is happening, but am having trouble figuring out the proper pattern for dealing with this. I did look in the guide but it didn't address this directly.

Answer 1

Here is a generic solution that works for all cases where only interface is known statically.

1. Create serialiser/deserialiser:

   final class InterfaceAdapter<T> implements JsonSerializer<T>, JsonDeserializer<T> {
       public JsonElement serialize(T object, Type interfaceType, JsonSerializationContext context) {
           final JsonObject wrapper = new JsonObject();
           wrapper.addProperty("type", object.getClass().getName());
           wrapper.add("data", context.serialize(object));
           return wrapper;
       }
   
       public T deserialize(JsonElement elem, Type interfaceType, JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {
           final JsonObject wrapper = (JsonObject) elem;
           final JsonElement typeName = get(wrapper, "type");
           final JsonElement data = get(wrapper, "data");
           final Type actualType = typeForName(typeName); 
           return context.deserialize(data, actualType);
       }
   
       private Type typeForName(final JsonElement typeElem) {
           try {
               return Class.forName(typeElem.getAsString());
           } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
               throw new JsonParseException(e);
           }
       }
   
       private JsonElement get(final JsonObject wrapper, String memberName) {
           final JsonElement elem = wrapper.get(memberName);
           if (elem == null) throw new JsonParseException("no '" + memberName + "' member found in what was expected to be an interface wrapper");
           return elem;
       }
   }
   

2. make Gson use it for the interface type of your choice:

   Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(Animal.class, new InterfaceAdapter<Animal>())
                                .create();