Documentation Contents

# Serialization Changes and Enhancements
in Java SE Development Kit 6

The following are enhancements to serialization in Java SE Development Kit 6 (JDK). For a summary of enhancements in previous releases, see Enhancements in Previous Releases.

`java.io.ObjectStreamClass.lookupAny`
  In previous releases, it was difficult to programmatically obtain an `ObjectStreamClass` instance for a non-serializable `Class`, although doing so can be desirable when customizing the stream format for class descriptors (see 4413615 for more information). The new method `ObjectStreamClass.lookupAny` can now be used for this purpose.
Bug fix: delayed garbage collection
  In previous releases, bug 6232010 could cause serializable classes and subclasses of `ObjectOutputStream` and `ObjectInputStream` to be strongly referenced long after their use in a serialization operation, thus possibly delaying garbage collection of their defining class loaders indefinitely. Internal caches in the serialization implementation have been restructured to fix this bug.

Copyright © 1993, 2026, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Contact Us