1.JSON

• one of simplest and most popular formats
• We can represent an object in plain text with fields of type: String, Number, Boolean, Array, Object

Example:

Adv:

• Simple and human readable
  • Even after serialization we can understand it and debug it
  • It's plain text so we can create the object and send it without any special software
• Programming language independent
• Easy integration with JavaScript/Front-End
  • JavaScript Object Notation is very similar to JavaScript Object representation

Deserialization:

2. Java Object Seralization

• The class needs to match the original class definition
• The class has to have an accessible no-args constructor
• If either of the conditions are violated, we will get an InvalidClassException during the deseralization process

Advantages:

• Guarantees about correst state reconstruction without any type ambiguity
• Very clear source of truth for the object we want to send over the network
• Native support in all the JVM languages
  • No need for external libraries
  • Simple development process

Disadvantages:

• Not human readable, harder to test
  • We need to import the class and write a Java program to send a message to the server
• Tight coupling to JVM languages
  • Won't work if we want to exchange messages with applications written in Golong/G++ for example
  • That is a big problem for building a distributed system that utilizes different technologies and runs on different platforms.

3. Google's Protocol Buffers

Advantages

• No type ambiguity
• Clear and well defined schema
• Language independent thanks to the 2 step process
  • Proto file definition
  • Language specific stub generation using proto compiler
• Efficient serialization & deserialization
• Security

Disadvantages

• Not Human readable
• Hard to debug
• More complex development process
  • Proto file definition
  • Stub generation