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As you know, XStream makes it easy to serialize objects to XML:

Person person = ...;
xstream.toXML(out);

Producing:

<com.blah.Person>
  <firstName>Joe</firstName>
  <lastName>Walnes</lastName>
  <homePhone>
    <areaCode>123</areaCode>
    <number>433535</number>
  </homePhone>
  <cellPhone>
    <areaCode>4545</areaCode>
    <number>4534</number>
  </cellPhone>
</com.blah.Person>

I often use this approach whilst debugging to dump out the contents of an object. It works, but my eyes just aren't that good at parsing XML.

By creating an alternative writer implementation, XStream can be used to serialize objects in other formats:

Person person = ...;
xstream.marshal(stuff, new AnAlternativeWriter(out));

Producing the slightly more digestible:

com.blah.Person
  firstName = Joe
  lastName = Walnes
  homePhone
    areaCode = 123
    number = 433535
  cellPhone
    areaCode = 4545
    number = 4534

To gain roundtrip serialization/deserialization support in alternative formats to XML, you need to provide your own implementations of both HierarchicalStreamWriter and HierarchicalStreamReader.