Editing Serialization (section)

==Drawbacks==
Serialization breaks the opacity of an [[abstract data type]] by potentially exposing private implementation details. Trivial implementations which serialize all data members may violate [[encapsulation (object-oriented programming)|encapsulation]].<ref>{{cite web|last=S. Miller|first=Mark|title=Safe Serialization Under Mutual Suspicion|url=http://erights.org/data/serial/jhu-paper/intro.html|work=ERights.org|quote=Serialization, explained below, is an example of a tool for use by objects within an object system for operating on the graph they are embedded in. This seems to require violating the encapsulation provided by the pure object model.}}</ref>

To discourage competitors from making compatible products, publishers of [[proprietary software]] often keep the details of their programs' serialization formats a [[trade secret]]. Some deliberately [[obfuscated code|obfuscate]] or even [[encryption|encrypt]] the serialized data. Yet, interoperability requires that applications be able to understand each other's serialization formats. Therefore, [[RMI-IIOP|remote method call]] architectures such as [[CORBA]] define their serialization formats in detail.

Many institutions, such as archives and libraries, attempt to [[future proof]] their [[backup]] archives—in particular, [[database dump]]s—by storing them in some relatively [[human-readable]] serialized format.