What is the purpose of the data serialization mechanism in programming?

Serialization is the process of converting a data structure or object into a sequence of bytes or a string for storage or transmission.

Why serialization is needed:

• Saving the state of an object to a file or database.
• Transmitting data over a network between applications.
• Caching objects.

In Python, the pickle module or JSON formats are often used for serialization, especially when data needs to be human-readable and compatible with other languages.

Example of serialization in JSON:

import json

data = {'name': 'Ivan', 'age': 30}
serialized = json.dumps(data)  # converts to JSON string
print(serialized)

# For restoring
restored = json.loads(serialized)
print(restored['name'])