Serialization

Serialization is used to transform data structures (as used within a program, in whatever native formats might be used by the programming language the program is in) into a file or data stream of standardized format to be saved for later use, or transmitted through a network to be used by a different program elsewhere.

Serialization formats

 * Avro
 * Bebop
 * Bencode (used by BitTorrent)
 * BSON
 * Cap'n Proto
 * CBOR (RFC 7049)
 * CoffeeScript-Object-Notation (CSON)
 * Concise Encoding
 * Cursive Script Object Notation
 * DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules)
 * FDF
 * FlatBuffers
 * Form URL encoding (application/x-www-form-urlencoded)
 * Hjson
 * I-JSON
 * Ion
 * IWA (Apple iWork serialization; .iwa)
 * Java Object Serialization
 * JSON (.json)
 * JSON5 (.json5)
 * JSONH
 * JSONx
 * LCON
 * MessagePack
 * Microsoft XNA Compiled Format (.xnb)
 * Minecraft NBT format
 * Multipart/Form-Data
 * OLE Property Set
 * Pickle (Python)
 * PostScript binary object format
 * Property List (.plist)
 * Protobuf (Protocol Buffers; a Google format also used within IWA)
 * RELOAD
 * Simple Binary Encoding
 * SBE Intermediate Representation
 * Thrift
 * Thrift binary protocol
 * Thrift compact protocol
 * Transit
 * UXF (Uniform Exchange Format)
 * XFDF
 * XML (originally intended only as a markup format, but ended up as probably the most popular serialization format)
 * YAML (.yaml)

Miscellaneous related things

 * EDI