It is actually: boolean byte (is BigString) short size if (short String) or long size if (Big String) bytes for Strings... it should be integer, but I'm already using long (if big strings) If you use StringUtil.. use StringUtil.saveString(dataOutput,String) and StringUtil.readString(dataInput,null); (I was supposed to create an overload here, but null will work here) If you want/need to move the class to some common project, I'm fine with that. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3968690#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...