Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes. We generally perform serialization for persisting an object and saving a state of an object. The persisted location can be a file or a database. In .NET Framework when an object is serialized it not only persists the data, but also persists some metadata. If an object is serialized it also persists its Type information, Assembly information, etc. De-serialization is the reverse process of serialization, where a serialized object is again made to be an active object.

In this article we will discuss different types of serializations with code snippets wherever necessary. A web service is completely based on the XML serialization and SOAP. We will discuss more about the XML serialization in detail.