F & O 3.0 -- serialize() function question

 I am reading the definition of the serialize function() in the XPath
and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0 specification,
http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#func-serialize

Having read several times this text, I feel confused:

"The final stage of serialization, that is, encoding, is skipped. If
the serializer does not allow this phase to be skipped, then the
sequence of octets returned by the serializer is decoded into a string
by reversing the character encoding performed in the final stage."

If, on one hand "The final stage of serialization, that is, encoding,
is skipped", then how is it possible to do "reversing the character
encoding performed in the final stage" ?

And what could possibly be a "string with reversed character encoding"?


I am deeply confused.

Could someone, please, explain this text?

-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
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