What is purpose of using serialVersionUID in Java?

Answer 1

serialVersionUID is used during the serialization process in order to check that the object getting deserialized belongs to the given version.

example :
 class A  implemnts serialization{
           private long serialversionUID =1L;
              private int a ;

               public void setA(){..}
               public int getA(){...}
}

if you serilaize an object of class A and now the version has changed in the latest class like

 class A  implemnts serialization{
    private long serialversionUID =10L;
               private int a ;
               private String s;

             public void setA(){..}
             public int getA(){...}
             public void setS(){..}
             public String getS(){...}
}

Now if you try to desrialize the object using the class with serial id 10L it won`t work and throw an exception .you need to desirialize it wiht calls with serial 1L.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

During object serialization, the default Java serialization mechanism writes the metadata about the object, which includes the class name, field names and types, and superclass. This class definition is stored as a part of the serialized object. This stored metadata enables the deserialization process to reconstitute the objects and map the stream data into the class attributes with the appropriate type
Everytime an object is serialized the java serialization mechanism automatically computes a hash value. ObjectStreamClass's computeSerialVersionUID() method passes the class name, sorted member names, modifiers, and interfaces to the secure hash algorithm (SHA), which returns a hash value.The serialVersionUID is also called suid.
So when the serilaize object is retrieved , the JVM first evaluates the suid of the serialized class and compares the suid value with the one of the object. If the suid values match then the object is said to be compatible with the class and hence it is de-serialized. If not InvalidClassException exception is thrown.

Changes to a serializable class can be compatible or incompatible. Following is the list of changes which are compatible:

Add fields
Change a field from static to non-static
Change a field from transient to non-transient
Add classes to the object tree
List of incompatible changes:

Delete fields
Change class hierarchy
Change non-static to static
Change non-transient to transient
Change type of a primitive field
So, if no suid is present , inspite of making compatible changes, jvm generates new suid thus resulting in an exception if prior release version object is used .
The only way to get rid of the exception is to recompile and deploy the application again.

If we explicitly metion the suid using the statement:

private final static long serialVersionUID =

then if any of the metioned compatible changes are made the class need not to be recompiled. But for incompatible changes there is no other way than to compile again.