Groovy provides the inspect()
method returns an object as a parseable string:
// serialize
def m = [a: 123, b: 'test']
def str = m.inspect()
// deserialize
m = Eval.me(str)
Another way to serialize a groovy map as a readable string is with JSON:
// serialize
import groovy.json.JsonBuilder
def m = [a: 123, b: 'test']
def builder = new JsonBuilder()
builder(m)
println builder.toString()
// deserialize
import groovy.json.JsonSlurper
def slurper = new JsonSlurper()
m = slurper.parseText('{"a": 123, "b": "test"}')