understanding a practical use for serialization

Question

Here is what i understand about serialization:

It lets you take your object and turn it into a stream of bytes so you can save it to a flat file for later use.

I would like to know what what benefit this would serve and why would anyone want to do this.

I'd believe you have already read this : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2232759/what-is-the-purpose-of-serialization-in-java — Ashish, Dec 26 '13 at 21:16
Save data, for games, or any other application with persistent data — Richard Tingle, Dec 26 '13 at 21:19
You could spin the question and ask why would anyone **not** want to do it? — Simon, Dec 26 '13 at 21:24

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 26 '13 at 21:19

This is a very general question - you would serialize an object into bytes for any number of reasons.

Transfer an object across the internet to another program
Save an object to a database or file system so you can restore your programs state at a later date or time
Save an object for the sake of undo/redo within your program

There are many other reasons as well, of course, but you can get the idea from these! I recommend searching online to see if serialization is useful for your application.

understanding a practical use for serialization

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