Best way to send an ArrayList<String[]> over TCP in Java?

I'm writing a client/server application in Java and I'm using TCP to transfer data which I'm storing in an ArrayList (i.e. An ArrayList of arrays of开发者_Go百科 Strings).

What is the best way to transfer that data from one to the other? Should I make one long string and use a PrintWriter's println() or is there a better way?

Thanks very much!

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Assuming both client and server and written in Java, and assuming you're stick with raw sockets, rather than a higher-level remoting framework:

OutputStream socketStream = ... 
ObjectOutput objectOutput = new ObjectOutputStream(socketStream);
objectOutput.writeObject(myDataList);

Similarly, use ObjectInputStream at the receiving end.

Should work nicely, as long as everything inside the list implements java.io.Serializable.

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To add a bit to skaffman's answer:

OutputStream socketStream = ... 
GZIPOutputStream objectOutput = new GZIPOutputStream(new ObjectOutputStream(socketStream));
objectOutput.writeObject(myDataList);

And on the client:

InputStream socketStream = ...
ObjectInputStream objectInput = new ObjectInputStream(new GZIPInputStream(socketStream));
ArrayList<type> a = objectInput.readObject();

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You might want to consider the JSON framework. See json.org JSON = Javascript Object Notation. Even though the name suggests the use of Javascript, the json.jar is a good serialization/deserialization tool.

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Many people would use a web service framework for this, such as Apache CXF. You could also go one level down to JAXB or XML Beans.

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You may want to look into Serialization. You could just make up your own format for such a simple case, though. Personally I favour bencoding. The minimum effort (and least bug-prone) solution here is Serialization, though.