Marshal/Unmarshal example in Ruby.

marshaling.rb

require 'base64'

# Let's first create a non primitive class that will be dumped.
class People
  POSSIBLE_NAMES = %w(foo bar)

  @@count = 0

  def initialize(*attrs)
    @@count += 1

    @name = attrs[0] || 'Foo'
    @last_name = attrs[1] || 'Bar'

    puts 'New people in da house!'
  end

  def self.count
    "Total: #{@@count}"
  end

  def full_name
    if are_names_ok?(@name, @last_name)
      "Full name: #{@name} #{@last_name}"
    else
      "Sorry, you have a bad name."
    end
  end

  private

  def are_names_ok?(*names)
    names.all? { |name| POSSIBLE_NAMES.include?(name.downcase) }
  end
end

# Now let's create a singleton class to storage our objects.
class Database
  @@collection = []

  class << self
    def collection; @@collection end

    def store(data)
      @@collection << data
      puts "New object stored into the database: #{data}"
    end
  end
end

# Then let's start with the example...
people = People.new
puts people.full_name
puts People.count

token = Base64.encode64(Marshal.dump(people))

Database.store(token)
puts Database.collection

people = Marshal.load(Base64.decode64(Database.collection.first))
puts people.full_name
puts People.count