Computer science: what is serialization?

Self-tutoring about computer science: the tutor mentions the concept of serialization.

Serialization means producing a string of characters (or perhaps just 0s and 1s) that can be written to a file, so preserved against power loss. That string of characters describes an entity and its state at that time. The entity is what is serialized.

If you’re working on an essay, then save it, you essentially serialize it. (The entity in this situation is the essay.) You can retrieve it later exactly as it was, even though you stopped working on it and closed it, because you saved it: saving it wrote it, as a (perhaps) long string of characters, onto a disk or usb drive. The program that stored it there can retrieve it and inflate it back into the essay you left.

What’s said above is a conceptual explanation of serialization, rather than a technical one.

Source:

microsoft.com