XStream is a simple library to serialize objects to XML and back again. Features: – Ease of use. A high level facade is supplied that simplifies common use cases. – No mappings required. Custom objects can be serialized without need for specifying mappings. – Performance. Speed and low memory footprint are a crucial part of the design, making it suitable for large object graphs or systems with high message throughput. – Clean XML. No information is duplicated that can be obtained via reflection. This results in XML that is easier to read for humans and more compact than native Java – Requires no modifications to objects. Serializes internal fields, including private and final. Supports non-public and inner classes. Classes are not required to have default constructor. – Full object graph support. Duplicate references encountered in the object-model will be maintained. Supports circular references. – Integrates with other XML APIs. By implementing an interface, XStream can serialize directly to/from any tree structure (not just XML). – Customizable conversion stategies. Strategies can be registered allowing customization of how particular types are represented as XML. – Error messages. When an exception occurs due to malformed XML, detailed diagnostics are provided to help isolate and fix the problem.
