why Serialization has no methods

[Srinivas Genji]

Hi All,
I`ve learnt that serialization Interface has no methods in it, i wonder why it doent have any methods in it,why an interface is needed without any methods in it.i didnt get the reason behind it.
I came to know even Remote Interface doesnt have any methods.
why do we need this without any methods.
thanks
cheers
Genji

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Implementing Serializable is just how you tell Java that it's OK to serialize a class. This kind of empty interface is called a "marker interface" and there are a handful of them in the Java APIs. Besides Serializable, Externalizable, and Remote, there's java.lang.Cloneable, which tells the default implementation of clone() that it's OK for it to be invoked.