final transient fields and serialization

Question

Is it possible to have final transient fields that are set to any non-default value after serialization in Java? My usecase is a cache variable — that\'s why i

Answer 1

You can change the contents of a field using Reflection. Works on Java 1.5+. It will work, because serialization is performed in a single thread. After another thread access the same object, it shouldn't change the final field (because of weirdness in the memory model & reflaction).

So, in readObject(), you can do something similar to this example:

import java.lang.reflect.Field;

public class FinalTransient {

    private final transient Object a = null;

    public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
        FinalTransient b = new FinalTransient();

        System.out.println("First: " + b.a); // e.g. after serialization

        Field f = b.getClass().getDeclaredField("a");
        f.setAccessible(true);
        f.set(b, 6); // e.g. putting back your cache

        System.out.println("Second: " + b.a); // wow: it has a value!
    }

}

Remember: Final is not final anymore!