METHODS AND DEVICES FOR BINARY OBJECT SERIALIZATION

Methods and devices for data serialization are described. Numbers are each encoded as one or more four-bit nibbles. Three bits of a nibble are for encoding some portion of a number and one bit of the nibble is for indicating whether encoding of the number is continued to another nibble. A begin command and an end command are used to bracket and thereby group selected nibbles. The numbers and the commands are serialized in a stream. An interpreter of the stream reads the numbers into data fields of a data object starting at the begin command. The interpreter automatically skips to the end command when the data fields are filled. As such, a newer version of an interpreter can read data serialized using an older version of an encoder, and an older version of an interpreter can read data serialized using a newer version of an encoder.