Serialization

Serialization is in the computer science a mapping from structured data in a sequential presentation. Serialization is mainly used for the persistence of objects in the files and for the transmission of objects over the network for distributed software systems.

Conventional storage media are capable of storing data streams. In order to achieve persistence for an object, it can be serialized. Here, the complete state of the object, is inclusive of all the referenced objects, converted into a data stream, which is then written to a storage medium.

After the serialization of an object is several times before: as an external display ( eg as a file ) and in memory. After serialization is a patch made ​​in the memory, this has no effect on the serialized object on the external display.

Reversing the serialization, ie the conversion of a data stream into objects is referred to as deserialization.