Explain the concept of data transformation into a format suitable for storage or transmission

Data transformation into a format suitable for storage or transmission is called serialization. It is the process of converting objects or data structures into a sequence of bytes or text that can be saved to a file, database, or transmitted over a network.

The reverse process — deserialization — restores the object from this format.

Examples of formats: JSON, XML, YAML, binary formats.

In Python, the json module is often used for serialization:

import json

data = {'name': 'Alice', 'age': 30}
serialized = json.dumps(data)  # Converts to a JSON string

# To write to a file
with open('data.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)

# To read and deserialize
with open('data.json') as f:
    loaded_data = json.load(f)

Serialization is important for data exchange between systems, saving state, and caching.