Implementing Deserialization Of Objects?

Say you have a bunch of animals, `Rat` `Cat` `Dog` and `Fish`, and you want to serialize/deserialize these animals. Each has its own `serialize()` method. That all works fine and good, if you want to save your Cat to a file, you call `Cat.serialize()` and then you write it to a file.

But what about deserializing? Sure, you could save an extra bit of data that states the type of animal, then use reflection to get a static method (say, `deserialize(String serialized)`) and then invoke it. But that's not safe. What if someone creates a new animal 'Rabbit' and doesn't include a `deserialize(String serialized)` method? Sure, you could then just catch the error and ignore the issue, but that seems unclean and bad practice.

You could also create an enum. Each item in the enum must have a `deserialize(String serialized)` method, and the aforementioned piece of data that states the type references the name of its enum item. Problem is, not very adaptable. Enums don't allow for other animals to be added at runtime.

The way I have been solving this issue is mapping the name of the objects against a deserializer object. Basically each animal would have to 'register' itself by entering it's name and deserializer (implements `Deserializer` interface) object into a HashMap. The deserializer object can then be retrieved via the name of the animal at a later time.

My question is, what is the best method to go about implementing deserialization? Also, is the method I have been using good/bad practice?

Finally, if you are wondering why animals would be added at runtime, the reason is because animals might be added by other non accessible parts of the program, or by things such as plugins.

Example of the method I have been using is below.

Animal Interface

Java Code:

public class Animal{
public String serialize();
} mh_sh_highlight_all('java'); Deserializer Interface

[code]....

And when you needed to deserialize:

Java Code:

Deserializer d=AnimalSpecies.getSpeciesDeserializer(serialized.split(AnimalSpecies.DELIMITER)[0]);
if (d!=null){
d.deserialize(serialized);
} mh_sh_highlight_all('java');

What I mean by this is that any serialized Animal must have a way of identifying which animal it is so that it's deserializer can be accessed. This can be worked around by implementing a wrapper that adds this information directly before it is written to a file, and removes it directly before deserialization.

Why not use built in serialization/deserialization? I would like the serialized data to be readable and easily editable.