Data persistance with BufferedReader and PrintWriter?

Question

I have this simple application with a couple of classes which are all related. There's one, the main one, for which there is only one instance of. I need to save save and load that using a text stream.

My instructor requirement is BufferedReader to load the stream and PrintWriter to save it. But is this even possible? To persist a data object/class with a text stream?

I know how to do it with an object, using serialization. But I don't see how am I supposed to do it using text streams.

Suggestions?

Answer 1

You need to define your own, simple, serialization protocol. Writing writes out the fields that need to be saved, reading reads them back in.

Answer 2

You actually have to figure it on your own to be helpfull for you :). What i can say that you can reformulate it like this:

Save and load the state of a class and of related members assuming you only have the BufferedReader and PrintWriter IO classes available (along with FileReader, FileWriter classes) and no serialization framework in place in the language.