Isnt serialization used for converting an object into a string, allowing it to be stored on a database or passed by POST or GET?

At the moment, ive been trying to get a better understanding on when it is actually efficient to use serialization versus using delimiters+explode.

I didnt knew you can do that with an array too. I guess its nice for multidimensional ones. I just tested it, I guess it doesnt matter even if youre using what serialize uses as a delimiter on the array values. Darn, thats nice...