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  1. JBoss Marshalling
  2. JBMAR-146

Serial impl: NullPointerException in org.jboss.marshalling.serial.PlainDescriptor when unmarshalling, in Java 6, object marshalled with Java 7

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    • Icon: Bug Bug
    • Resolution: Unresolved
    • Icon: Major Major
    • None
    • 1.3.17.GA
    • Serial
    • None
    • Compatibility/Configuration

      When I marshal a java.util.Locale object in Java 7 and then try to unmarshal it in Java 6 using the "serial" implementation, I get the following exception:

      Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.jboss.marshalling.serial.PlainDescriptor.defaultReadFields(PlainDescriptor.java:151)
	at org.jboss.marshalling.serial.PlainDescriptor.readSerial(PlainDescriptor.java:73)
	at org.jboss.marshalling.serial.SerialUnmarshaller.doReadSerialObject(SerialUnmarshaller.java:348)
	at org.jboss.marshalling.serial.SerialUnmarshaller.doReadObject(SerialUnmarshaller.java:288)
	at org.jboss.marshalling.serial.SerialUnmarshaller.doReadObject(SerialUnmarshaller.java:78)
	at org.jboss.marshalling.AbstractObjectInput.readObject(AbstractObjectInput.java:37)
	at JBossUnmarshaller.main(JBossUnmarshaller.java:19)

      Note that the java.util.Locale class changed between Java 6 and Java 7 (a couple of fields were added), but its serialization API per the Java Serialization spec has not.

      This particular issue could be fixed by adding a null check to PlainDescriptor, but there's an underlying question: is the "serial" implementation meant to be compatible across Java versions?

      Below are the tests I used:

      JBossMarshaller.java
      import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Locale;

import org.jboss.marshalling.Marshaller;
import org.jboss.marshalling.MarshallerFactory;
import org.jboss.marshalling.Marshalling;
import org.jboss.marshalling.MarshallingConfiguration;
import org.jboss.marshalling.OutputStreamByteOutput;

public class JBossMarshaller {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        FileOutputStream stream = new FileOutputStream("./testjboss-locale-1.7");
        MarshallerFactory factory = Marshalling.getProvidedMarshallerFactory("serial");
        MarshallingConfiguration config = new MarshallingConfiguration();
        
        Marshaller marshaller = factory.createMarshaller(config);
        
        marshaller.start(new OutputStreamByteOutput(stream));
        marshaller.writeObject(Locale.CANADA);
        marshaller.flush();
        marshaller.finish();
        stream.close();
    }

}
      JBossUnmarshaller.java
      import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

import org.jboss.marshalling.InputStreamByteInput;
import org.jboss.marshalling.MarshallerFactory;
import org.jboss.marshalling.Marshalling;
import org.jboss.marshalling.MarshallingConfiguration;
import org.jboss.marshalling.Unmarshaller;

public class JBossUnmarshaller {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
        FileInputStream stream = new FileInputStream("./testjboss-locale-1.7");
        
        MarshallerFactory factory = Marshalling.getProvidedMarshallerFactory("serial");
        MarshallingConfiguration config = new MarshallingConfiguration();
        
        Unmarshaller unmarshaller = factory.createUnmarshaller(config);
        unmarshaller.start(new InputStreamByteInput(stream));
        Object obj = unmarshaller.readObject();
        unmarshaller.finish();
        
        System.out.println(obj);
        stream.close();
    }
}

              Unassigned Unassigned
              atuladhar Amrit Tuladhar (Inactive)
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                Created:
                Updated: