serialization

[paul@...]

Hi the list,

Is there a serialization/de-serialization function in Lua?
I've briefly looked at the source code, the only thing I
found close is dump and undump, and dump only exists in
luac. I suppose they are for dumping and loading chunks
(data, codes, stacks & all) only?

I am planning to use Lua in a network environment, which
involves passing data around. Since Lua supports complex
datatype - table, I wonder if there is any convinient (or
even built-in) function to save a table onto a stream and
then load it back? It will be even better if this feature
is platform & endian independent.

If there isn't any, would anyone know where I shall start
from?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Paul H. LIU