>Hi all,
>
>When discussing json data here, noticed that wikipedia and even Rick's class uses the word "serialize" as a function. Perhaps this is a term taught at university (I did not take computer science, rather crop science) so have not used it before. When I think of "serialize" I would think of a series of numbers or in publishing, to publish a series of articles that might in other cases have been a book etc.
>
>I looked at the wikipedia but the explanation still did not makes sense of why the word "serial" was used. It seems as though basically serializing means to transform an object into another type of data string easily transmitted to another computer system - or something like that.
>
>Just wondering...just don't like using terms without having a clue as to their root meeting.
>
>Albert

Albert,
If you need what that means, instead of its roots or meaning in dictionary, it simply means:

Save

If you wonder why it is called as Serialize, probably because it is saved in sequences of bytes. You can look it at something MS added as a term (maybe someone else did but it was the first time I saw it used in .Net - ISerializable, Serializer, Serialize ...).