Serializing object graphs

An object graph is a structure of multiple objects that are related to each other, either through a direct reference or indirectly through a chain of references.Serialization is the process of converting a live object graph into a sequence of bytes using a specified format. Deserialization is the reverse process. You would use serialization to save the current state of a live object so that you can recreate it in the future, for example, saving the current state of a game so that you can continue at the same place tomorrow. The stream produced from a serialized object is usually stored in a file or database.There are dozens of formats you can choose for serialization, but the two most common text-based human-readable formats are eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). There are also more efficient binary formats like Protobuf used by gRPC.

Good Practice: JSON is more compact and is best for web and mobile applications. XML is...