In general the process of taking some convoluted internal data structure and
generating a linear representation of it that can be used to reconstruct the
internal data structures at a later time. This is the fundament underlying
persistence and transfer of complex data over channels.

** See Also **

   [data format]:   

   [Serializing a Bitmap]:   

   [Serializing a Photo]:   

   [Serializing a Canvas widget]:   

   [Serializing a Widget]:   

   [Serializing a Text widget]:   

   [A Widget Serializer]:   

   [Deep copy and persistence of a BWidget's Tree]:   

   [Dumping interpreter state]:   [proc]s, [global]s, [interp aliases], [package require]ments

   [Serializing TclOO objects]:   

[RS] notes that most serialization worries from other languages are no problem
in Tcl where [everything is a string] ...

Great that be doable, better that be done (where worries go). 

[TV]: But in various cases it should be so much simpler... Agreed, though. -
[RS]: This page lists only the nontrivial cases. Other languages will have to
worry about how to serialize an integer, a double, a list, an array... which
Tcl all provides with built-in string reps, as specially simple case of
serialization.

[escargo] 2004-02-21:  This could also be seen as an implementation of the
'''Memento''' design pattern.

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