How does receiving application knows which serialization mechanism has been used?

Question

I am receiving bytes of data onto a kafka topic and those bytes can be sent (by an application) by using plain Java Serialization or JSON serialization or protocol buffer.

So, now when my application reads those bytes from kafka topic, how does it know which Serilization technique was used, which can be: Java Serialization, JSON Serialization, Protocol Buffer.

Is there a way to check this? Does "Serialization format" differ by these different mechanisms?

Any information to understand this would be of great help.

@LouisWasserman: Thanks for your comment. However, could you provide some insight on other part of question viz: identifying serialization format? — CuriousMind, Jul 15 '19 at 02:04
Not really. Though you should probably just stick to one serialization format for your whole application, in which case it won't be an issue. :) — Louis Wasserman, Jul 15 '19 at 02:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 25 '19 at 23:14

0

The serialization technique must be agreed/defined between the sender and the receiver.

It must be the contract between the two parts.

answered Sep 25 '19 at 23:14

jordiburgos

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How does receiving application knows which serialization mechanism has been used?

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