This library implements an efficient, compact-output, and feature-rich serializer using a binary protocol called _Sereal_. Its sister module Sereal::Decoder implements a decoder for this format. The two are released separately to allow for independent and safer upgrading. If you care greatly about performance, consider reading the Sereal::Performance documentation after finishing this document.

The Sereal protocol version emitted by this encoder implementation is currently protocol version 4 by default.

The protocol specification and many other bits of documentation can be found in the github repository. Right now, the specification is at https://github.com/Sereal/Sereal/blob/master/sereal_spec.pod, there is a discussion of the design objectives in https://github.com/Sereal/Sereal/blob/master/README.pod, and the output of our benchmarks can be seen at https://github.com/Sereal/Sereal/wiki/Sereal-Comparison-Graphs. For more information on getting the best performance out of Sereal, have a look at the "PERFORMANCE" section below.