serialization == convert to a byte stream.

The byte stream can be a character stream in whatever encoding or a binary one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_data_serializati... lists lots of binary serialization formats.

Like it says earlier in the post, it could be enough to only serialize (stringify) the data structure at the very end of building it, once it's finalized. Once it's stringified, it must be treated as a isolated black box, which cannot be inspected, modified, or combined with other black boxes.

I tried to build something like that for rendering HTML, for the same reasons – security and proper structure. But, stupidly, I was working in PHP, and so its syntax was somewhat clunky. I still think it is a good idea, though.