Re: What does serialization mean?

According to Wikipedia, 


"In computing, serialization is the process of translating a data structure <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure>  or object <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_(computer_science)>  state into a format that can be stored or transmitted."


This is the intention of the text I wrote in the spec, and therefore would claim that the spec as it stands is fine.


Steven


On Wednesday 19 February 2025 14:49:38 (+01:00), Norm Tovey-Walsh wrote:



> Hello,

>

> On the iXML CG call this week, we had a short discussion about serialization[1]. Several different perspectives were expressed regarding what “serialization” means.

>

> I found that a little surprising because I would have asserted that it unambiguously meant “constructing a sequence of Unicode characters” that represent an XML document.

>

> This is (literally) a serialization: <S>a</S>

>

> If you parse ‘a’ with this grammar:

>

> S: 'a' .

>

> and construct a representation of an S containing a literal “a”, I wouldn’t call the process of constructing that representation “serializaton”.

>

> On closer reading of the specification, it seems pretty clear that the word “serialization” is often (but not always!) a short hand for “making some XML.” I think that’s misleading. (I’m not saying you *can’t* call it that, technical specifications can define their terms any way they like, except, we don’t actually define “serialization” so we don’t do that either!)

>

> I’ve taken a stab at teasing apart those two perspectives, it’s in PR 296 and the changes are highlighted here:

>

> https://invisiblexml.org/pr/296/autodiff.html

>

> Alas, the navigation buttons seem to be broken. I’ll see about fixing that shortly. In the meantime, I think the changes are all highlighted.

>

> Hopefully this is a good starting point.

>

> Be seeing you,

> norm

>

> [1] https://www.w3.org/2025/02/18-ixml-minutes#f6f8

>

> --

> Norm Tovey-Walsh

> Saxonica

>

>