I have been searching for an xml serialization library that can serialize and deserialize an (Java/Python) object into xml and back. I am using XStream right now for Java. If XStream had a python version to deserialize from xml generated by Xstream that would have done it for me. Thrift or such other libraries is not going to work unless they allow the data format to be xml. I am looking for suggestion for any library that can do it. - Thanks
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4 Answers
Since Java and Python objects are so different in themselves, it's almost impossible to do this, unless you on both sides restrict the types allowed and such things.
And in that case, I'd recommend you use JSON, which is a nice interoperability format, even though it's not XML.
Otherwise you could easily write a library that takes XStream XML and loads it into Python objects, but it will always be limited to whatever is similar between Java and Python.
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I don't think you're likely to find an automated way to serialise Java objects and deserialise into Python objects. They're different things, so if you want to translate, you'll have to write some code at one or both ends.
If it's really simple stuff - strings, numbers, booleans, and so on, then you might want to look into json, a very simple format with bindings for just about every language. Deserialising a json object in Python is as simple as:
json.loads('{"test":false}')
Another way to approach the problem might be to use Jython, an implementation of Python in Java, so you can use Java objects directly.
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The problem is (like sort of suggested by other answers) that XStream is a Java object serialization framework, and not general data mapping/binding framework. This is by design (see XStream FAQ): upside is that it can nicely serialize and deserialize all kinds of Java objects out-of-box. Downside is that resulting XML structure is fairly rigid, and while you can rename things there isn't much other configurability.
But XStream is not the only Java XML handling library. I would suggest checking out either JAXB reference implementation or JibX as possibly better alternatives, so that you have more control over XML to process. This may be necessary to achieve good interoperability.
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Does it really need to use XML?
For serializing structured data between Java and Python you might want to consider Google Protocol Buffers.
