The attached file: SerializePatch2.tgz, contains a patch for
org.postgresql.util.Serialize and org.postgresql.jdbc2.PreparedStatement
that fixes the ability to "serialize" a simple java class into a
postgres table.
The current cvs seems completely broken in this support, so the patch
puts it into working condition, granted that there are many limitations
with serializing java classes into Postgres.
The code to do serialize appears to have been in the driver since
Postgres 6.4, according to some comments in the source. My code is not
adding any totally new ability to the driver, rather just fixing what
is there so that it actually is usable. I do not think that it should
affect any existing functions of the driver that people regularly
depend on.
The code is activated if you use jdbc2.PreparedStatement and try to
setObject some java class type that is unrecognized, like not String or
not some other primitive type. This will cause a sequence of function
calls that results in an instance of Serialize being instantiated for
the class type passed. The Serialize constructor will query pg_class
to see if it can find an existing table that matches the name of the
java class. If found, it will continue and try to use the table to
store the object, otherwise an SQL exception is thrown and no harm is
done. Serialize.create() has to be used to setup the table for a java
class before anything can really happen with this code other than an
SQLException (unless by some freak chance a table exists that it thinks
it can use).
I saw a difference in Serialize.java between 7.1.3 and 7.2devel that I
didn't notice before, so I had to redo my changes from the 7.2devel
version (why I had to resend this patch now). I was missing the
fixString stuff, which is nice and is imporant to ensure the inserts
will not fail due to embedded single quote or unescaped backslashes. I
changed that fixString function in Serialize just a little since there
is no need to muddle with escaping newlines: only escaping single quote
and literal backslashes is needed. Postgres appears to insert newlines
within strings without trouble.