JSON is a cross language, widely used method to serialize data

Supported data types : int, float, boolean, string, list and dict. See -> JSON Wiki for more

Here is an example demonstrating the basic usage of JSON :-

import json

families = (['John'], ['Mark', 'David', {'name': 'Avraham'}])

# Dumping it into string
json_families = json.dumps(families)
# [["John"], ["Mark", "David", {"name": "Avraham"}]]

# Dumping it to file
with open('families.json', 'w') as json_file:
    json.dump(families, json_file)

# Loading it from string
json_families = json.loads(json_families)

# Loading it from file
with open('families.json', 'r') as json_file:
    json_families = json.load(json_file)

See JSON-Module for detailed information about JSON.

Here is an example demonstrating the basic usage of pickle:-

# Importing pickle
try:
    import cPickle as pickle  # Python 2
except ImportError:
    import pickle  # Python 3

# Creating Pythonic object:
class Family(object):
    def __init__(self, names):
        self.sons = names

    def __str__(self):
        return ' '.join(self.sons)

my_family = Family(['John', 'David'])

# Dumping to string
pickle_data = pickle.dumps(my_family, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)

# Dumping to file
with open('family.p', 'w') as pickle_file:
    pickle.dump(families, pickle_file, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)

# Loading from string
my_family = pickle.loads(pickle_data)

# Loading from file
with open('family.p', 'r') as pickle_file:
    my_family = pickle.load(pickle_file)

See Pickle for detailed information about Pickle.

WARNING: The official documentation for pickle makes it clear that there are no security guarantees. Don't load any data you don't trust its origin.