Gerard,
As in my original reply it doesn't need to be human readable. Unofficially defining:
Saving = Serializing
A dbf is serialized (have on disk representation - and serialization doesn't always need to be done to disk or alike but forget this, causes confusion).

Serialization is not specific to .NET. It existed much before and another way of saying 'save, saveable..' IMHO
oRecordSet.Save("myFile.rst") && Serialize in binary datagram format - like a DBF
oRecordSet.Save("myFile.rst",1) && Serialize in XML format

Cetin

>Thanks for your replies.
>
>To summarise:
>Serilaisation is the procedure whereby an 'Entity' is tranaslated into a format that can be universally accessed ? e.g. outputting a ursor or a Dataset into an XML file.
>
>Is this any different than say copying a DBF file to a CSV file , if we assume that a CSV file can be universally read ?
>
>Does the output 'Always' have to be in XML format ?
>
>Regards,
>
>Gerard
>
>
>
>
>
>>This concept exists in VFP, for example CursorToXml() Serialize a cursor into an XML string, and XMLToCursor Desirialize an XML String back into a cursor.
>>
>>HTH.
>>
>>>I've seen many rferences recently to 'Serilaization' in Dot Net and have never come across this concept in VFP.
>>>
>>>Anybody care to give an explanation of whet Serialization is and a few examples of how it can be used ?
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Gerard