Serializable and Parcelable in Android

Question

I am not clear about distinct use of interface Serializable and Parcelable in Android. If we prefer the use of Parcelable, then why we do so over Serializable. Moreover, if I pass data through any webservice, can Parcelable help? If so, then how?

Answer 1

So the main difference is the speed, and it matters on your hand-held device. Supposedly less powerful than your desktop.

With Serialisable which comes for goold old Java, your code will look like this:

class MyPojo implements Serializable {
    String name;
    int age;
}

No extra methods are needed as reflection will be used to get all fields and their values. And this can me slow or is slower than ...

and to use Parcelable you have to write something like this:

class MyPojo implements Parcelable {
    String name;
    int age;

    MyPojo(Parcel in) {
        name = in.readString();
        age = in.readInt();
    }

    void writeToParcel(Parcel dest, int flags) {
        dest.writeString(name);
        dest.writeInt(age);
    }

    int describeContents() {
        return 0;
    }

    // and here goes CREATOR as well and what not
};

according to guys @google it can be much much faster, Parcelables that is.

Of course, there are tools to help you with adding all necessary fields to make a class Parcelable like https://github.com/johncarl81/parceler