Android ArrayList of custom objects - Save to SharedPreferences - Serializable?

Yes, you can save your composite object in shared preferences. Let's say..

 Student mStudentObject = new Student();
 SharedPreferences appSharedPrefs = PreferenceManager
             .getDefaultSharedPreferences(this.getApplicationContext());
 Editor prefsEditor = appSharedPrefs.edit();
 Gson gson = new Gson();
 String json = gson.toJson(mStudentObject);
 prefsEditor.putString("MyObject", json);
 prefsEditor.commit(); 

..and now you can retrieve your object as:

 SharedPreferences appSharedPrefs = PreferenceManager
             .getDefaultSharedPreferences(this.getApplicationContext());
 Gson gson = new Gson();
 String json = appSharedPrefs.getString("MyObject", "");
 Student mStudentObject = gson.fromJson(json, Student.class);

For more information, click here.

If you want to get back an ArrayList of any type object e.g. Student, then use:

Type type = new TypeToken<List<Student>>(){}.getType();
List<Student> students = gson.fromJson(json, type);

The answer above works, but not for list:

For saving list of objects do like this:

List<Cars> cars= new ArrayList<Cars>();
    cars.add(a);
    cars.add(b);
    cars.add(c);
    cars.add(d);

    gson = new Gson();
    String jsonCars = gson.toJson(cars);
    Log.d("TAG","jsonCars = " + jsonCars);

Read the json object:

Type type = new TypeToken<List<Cars>>(){}.getType();
List<Cars> carsList = gson.fromJson(jsonCars, type);

For me it worked like this :

Put values in SharedPreferances :

String key = "Key";
ArrayList<ModelClass> ModelArrayList=new ArrayList();

SharedPreferences shref;
SharedPreferences.Editor editor;
shref = context.getSharedPreferences(MyPREFERENCES, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);

Gson gson = new Gson();
String json = gson.toJson(ModelArrayList);

editor = shref.edit();
editor.remove(key).commit();
editor.putString(key, json);
editor.commit();

To get values from SharedPreferances :

Gson gson = new Gson();
String response=shref.getString(key , "");
ArrayList<ModelClass> lstArrayList = gson.fromJson(response, 
    new TypeToken<List<ModelClass>>(){}.getType());

For Save:

public static void saveSharedPreferencesLogList(Context context, List<PhoneCallLog> callLog) {
    SharedPreferences mPrefs = context.getSharedPreferences(Constant.CALL_HISTORY_RC, context.MODE_PRIVATE);
    SharedPreferences.Editor prefsEditor = mPrefs.edit();
    Gson gson = new Gson();
    String json = gson.toJson(callLog);
    prefsEditor.putString("myJson", json);
    prefsEditor.commit();
}

For load:

public static List<PhoneCallLog> loadSharedPreferencesLogList(Context context) {
    List<PhoneCallLog> callLog = new ArrayList<PhoneCallLog>();
    SharedPreferences mPrefs = context.getSharedPreferences(Constant.CALL_HISTORY_RC, context.MODE_PRIVATE);
    Gson gson = new Gson();
    String json = mPrefs.getString("myJson", "");
    if (json.isEmpty()) {
        callLog = new ArrayList<PhoneCallLog>();
    } else {
        Type type = new TypeToken<List<PhoneCallLog>>() {
        }.getType();
        callLog = gson.fromJson(json, type);
    }
    return callLog;
}

PhoneCallLog is my custom object's name. (Contains String, long and boolean values)