Elixir: example of turning a term to a string and a string to a term

term_round_trip.exs

defmodule TermRoundTrip do
  @moduledoc """
  Convert a term to a readable string then back to a term
  """

  def term_to_binary( term ) do
    :io_lib.format("~p.~n", [ term ] )
    |> :erlang.iolist_to_binary
  end

  def binary_to_term( binary ) do
    { :ok, t, _p } =
      binary
      |> String.to_charlist
      |> :erl_scan.string
    :erl_parse.parse_term( t )
  end

  def main do
    term = [ %{ a: 7, b: 12 }, 55, "and" ]
    str = term_to_binary( term )
    { :ok, term2 } = binary_to_term( str )
    IO.puts( str )
    IO.inspect( term )
    IO.inspect( term2 )
    IO.inspect( term === term2 )
  end
end

TermRoundTrip.main