Core Java™ 2 Volume II - Advanced Features, Seventh Edition

JavaBeans Persistence

JavaBeans persistence uses JavaBeans properties to save beans to a stream and to read them back at a later time or in a different virtual machine. In this regard, JavaBeans persistence is similar to object serialization. (See Volume 1, Chapter 12 for more information on serialization.) However, there is an important difference: JavaBeans persistence is suitable for long-term storage.

When an object is serialized, its instance fields are written to a stream. If the implementation of a class changes, then its instance fields may change. You cannot simply read files that contain serialized objects of older versions. It is possible to detect version differences and translate between old and new data representations. However, ...