Unpickle

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To reverse the pickling process so that serialized data is turned back into the original object in a program
2. Rebuilding a stored object from its serialized byte form so that it can be used again in code
3. Converting previously serialized information back into its live, usable form within a computing environment

Etymology: "Unpickle" is a computing term, and its history is simply a matter of combining two existing words. It is formed from the prefix "un-", meaning "reverse" or "undo", attached to "pickle" in the sense of the verb "to pickle", which originally meant to preserve food in brine or vinegar. The link to the kitchen is a useful clue to the logic. In programming, "pickle" became the name for converting a data structure into a stream of bytes so that it can be saved to disk or sent across a network, much like preserving food so it keeps. "Unpickle" is the reverse process: taking that stored byte stream and rebuilding the original object from it, reversing the preservation.

Synonyms: deserialize, unserialize

Antonyms: pickle, serialize