Inspect serialized file content

Solution 1:

jdeserialize

There is tool from Google called "jdeserialize":

jdeserialize is a library that interprets Java serialized objects -- the data generated by an ObjectOutputStream. It also comes with a command-line tool that can generate compilable class declarations, extract block data, and print textual representations of instance values.

Project site of jdeserialize
Git repository of jdeserialize

Serialysis

There is also a Java library called "Serialysis", that can be used to generate human-readable output of a serialized object, like so:

SEntity sint = SerialScan.examine(new Integer(5));
System.out.println(sint);

...produces this output:

SObject(java.lang.Integer) {
  value = Prim(int){5}
}

Explanation of how Serialysis works
Git repository of Serialysis

Since both projects are written in Java, you can use them in both Windows and Linux.