[Python-Dev] pickle me, Elmo? (original) (raw)

Kevin Jacobs jacobs@penguin.theopalgroup.com
Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13🔞43 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote:

Alas, that ground is specifically not covered by pickling -- not in the past and not now. This is by design. Pickling was designed for data, and when the data contains a reference to a class or function, that reference is specifically excluded from the pickling; instead, the pickler says "here's a reference to class C (or function f) in module M"; the unpickler imports module M, finds C or f in it, and inserts that in the unpicked data.

But you're not the only one to want to save and restore classes and functions.

Or if one wants to pickle instances of classes generated on the fly using the 'type' constructor and/or metaclasses. I'm looking forward to evaluating the pickle protocol 2 to see if it can make this possible.

-Kevin

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Kevin Jacobs The OPAL Group - Enterprise Systems Architect Voice: (216) 986-0710 x 19 E-mail: jacobs@theopalgroup.com Fax: (216) 986-0714 WWW: http://www.theopalgroup.com