Alex Rivera | Logout

Save custom object array in instance state

Asked 2010-07-11T12:25:37.027
13

I have a List<CustomObject> (where CustomObject comes from an external library -- I can't make changes to it). I want to save this in onSaveInstanceState(Bundle), but I can't seem to do it. Here are the options that I've tried:

outState.putSerializable(KEY, (ArrayList<CustomObject>) myList); // because myList is instantiated as an ArrayList
outState.putSerializable(KEY, myList.toArray());

Both options work when switching orientation on the phone (yes, onSaveInstanceState is called when switching orientation -- I checked in logcat). However, when the current activity tries to start another one (with startActivity(Intent)), Android pauses the current activity and calls onSaveInstanceState() again. This time, it fails, for some reason unknown to me. The fishy thing is that onSaveInstanceState() executes successfully. The stack trace printed doesn't point to any of my code:

E/AndroidRuntime(23898): java.lang.RuntimeException: Parcel: unable to marshal value my.custom.Object@5e07e43b
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Parcel.writeValue(Parcel.java:1087)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Parcel.writeArray(Parcel.java:519)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Parcel.writeValue(Parcel.java:1072)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Parcel.writeMapInternal(Parcel.java:469)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Bundle.writeToParcel(Bundle.java:1445)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.os.Parcel.writeBundle(Parcel.java:483)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.app.ActivityManagerProxy.activityPaused(ActivityManagerNative.java:1427)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.handlePauseActivity(ActivityThread.java:3106)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2400(ActivityThread.java:119)
E/AndroidRuntime(23898):    at android.app.Acti
java android serialization
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1 Answer

-2

Why not just save the object to the SD Card? You can see an example of how I use this at my blog >> http://androidworkz.com/2010/07/06/source-code-imageview-flipper-sd-card-scanner/

public void saveArray(String filename, String[] output_field) {
         try {
            FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(filename);
            GZIPOutputStream gzos = new GZIPOutputStream(fos);
            ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(gzos);
            out.writeObject(output_field);
            out.flush();
            out.close();
         }
         catch (IOException e) {
             e.getStackTrace(); 
         }
      }

    public String[] loadArray(String filename) {
          try {
            FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(filename);
            GZIPInputStream gzis = new GZIPInputStream(fis);
            ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(gzis);
            String[] read_field = (String[])in.readObject();
            in.close();
            return read_field;
          }
          catch (Exception e) {
              e.getStackTrace();
          }
          return null;
      }
answered 2010-07-12T13:03:54.757

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