What is deserialize and serialize in JSON?

Question

I have seen the terms \"deserialize\" and \"serialize\" with JSON. What do they mean?

Answer 1

In the context of data storage, serialization (or serialisation) is the process of translating data structures or object state into a format that can be stored (for example, in a file or memory buffer) or transmitted (for example, across a network connection link) and reconstructed later. [...]
The opposite operation, extracting a data structure from a series of bytes, is deserialization. From Wikipedia

In Python "serialization" does nothing else than just converting the given data structure (e.g. a dict) into its valid JSON pendant (object).

• Python's True will be converted to JSONs true and the dictionary itself will then be encapsulated in quotes.
• You can easily spot the difference between a Python dictionary and JSON by their Boolean values:
  • Python: True / False,
  • JSON: true / false
• Python builtin module json is the standard way to do serialization:

Code example:

data = {
    "president": {
        "name": "Zaphod Beeblebrox",
        "species": "Betelgeusian",
        "male": True,
    }
}

import json
json_data = json.dumps(data, indent=2) # serialize
restored_data = json.loads(json_data) # deserialize

# serialized json_data now looks like:
# {
#   "president": {
#     "name": "Zaphod Beeblebrox",
#     "species": "Betelgeusian",
#     "male": true
#   }
# }

Source: realpython.com