serialize/deserialize a LinkedHashMap (android) java

Question

So i want to pass a LinkedHashMap to an intent.

//SEND THE MAP
Intent singlechannel = new Intent(getBaseContext(),singlechannel.class);
singlechannel.putExtra("db",shows1);//perase to
startActivity(singlechannel);

//GET THE MAP
LinkedHashMap<String,String> db = new LinkedHashMap<String,String>();   
db=(LinkedHashMap<String,String>) getIntent().getSerializableExtra("db");

This one Worked Like a charm with HashMap. But with LinkedHashMap i got a problem i got a runtime error here

  db=(LinkedHashMap<String,String>) getIntent().getSerializableExtra("db");

I get no error with HashMap.

I also got a warning "Type safety: Unchecked cast from Serializable to LinkedHashMap" But i had this warning with HashMap too. Any ideas.Any help is much appreciated

Also I just saw this. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HARMONY-6498

Answer 1

The root of the problem here is that you are trying to type cast to a generic type. This cannot be done without an unsafe/unchecked type cast.

The runtime types of generic types are raw types; i.e. types in which the actual types of the type parameters are not known. In this case the runtime type will be LinkedHashMap<?, ?>. This cannot be safely typecast to LinkedMashMap<String, String> because the runtime system has no way of knowing that all of the keys and values are actually String instances.

You have two options:

• You could add an annotation to tell the compiler to "shut up" about the unchecked cast. This is a bit risky. If for some reason one of the keys or values is not actually a String, your application may later get a ClassCastException at a totally unexpected place; e.g. while iterating the keys or assigning the result of a get.

• You could manually copy the deserialised LinkedHashMap<?, ?> into a new LinkedMashMap<String, String>, explicitly casting each key and value to String.

EDIT

If you are using the Harmony classlib or a mixture of Sun and Harmony, then the runtime exception might be explained by bugs in Harmony. But it is impossible to tell without seeing the exception, and more details on precisely which classes / versions you are using to serialize and deserialize the maps.

Answer 2

LinkedHashMap does implement Map interface, here is definition from the source code:

public class LinkedHashMap<K,V>
    extends HashMap<K,V>
    implements Map<K,V>

The following test is working fine, so I think the problem you have is not related LinkedHashMap.

Map<String, String> map = new LinkedHashMap<String, String>();
        map.put("1", "one");
        FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("c://map.ser");
        ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
        out.writeObject(map);
        out.close();


        FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream("c://map.ser");
        ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(fin);
        Map<String, String> map2 = (Map<String, String>) in.readObject();
        System.out.println(map2);