I have now been informed that the code I posted previously is not entirely
accurate.  What's actually happening is that there is an interface
MyInterface which MyClass implements.  An object of type MyClass is being
serialized on one machine and transmitted to another where MyClass is not
known explicitly.  The hope was that the serialized object would contain
sufficient information so that referring to the deserialized object as a
MyInterface would be sufficient to allow the object to be deserialized on
the second machine.

Is this correct?  Does the MyClass need to be on the class path of the
second machine in order for an object of type MyInterface to be deserialized
there?

If so, is there a way to dynamically instantiate the class object of MyClass
on the second machine so that it could "learn" about this class?

Revised code:

ByteArrayInputStream bais = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes, 0,
bytes.length);
MyInterface mi = null;
try {
  ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(bais);
  System.out.println("Reading object...");
  Object o = ois.readObject();
  System.out.println("Object read, o = " + o + ".");
  mi = (MyInterface)o;
}
catch (Exception cnfe) {
  System.out.println("Exception!");
  cnfe.printStackTrace();
}

Exactly how did you create the byte array? I'll guess that it doesn't
contain both the necessary ObjectStream header and a valid object.

In another post you mention that the object's class is not known at
the receiving end. I'd expect that to cause an exception, not a hang.
On the other hand, your explicit cast to MyClass implies that MyClass
*is* known here.

/gordon

--

To answer that question we need to see the declaration of the class
you serialised and the code you used to serialised it.
--

Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

<snip>

OK, thanks to all those who replied and to Roedy for the excellent resource
on serialization.  So clearly what I am trying to do is not possible but is
there some way to transmit the class definition along with or separately
from the actual object itself?  Basically I am trying to keep the client
very small and only load classes when they are needed as the client is an
applet.  I also understand that applets cannot use custom class loaders.

Any ideas?