12.4. marshal
— Internal Python object serialization¶
This module contains functions that can read and write Python values in a binary format. The format is specific to Python, but independent of machine architecture issues (e.g., you can write a Python value to a file on a PC, transport the file to a Sun, and read it back there). Details of the format are undocumented on purpose; it may change between Python versions (although it rarely does). [1]
This is not a general «persistence» module. For general persistence and
transfer of Python objects through RPC calls, see the modules pickle
and
shelve
. The marshal
module exists mainly to support reading and
writing the «pseudo-compiled» code for Python modules of .pyc
files.
Therefore, the Python maintainers reserve the right to modify the marshal format
in backward incompatible ways should the need arise. If you’re serializing and
de-serializing Python objects, use the pickle
module instead – the
performance is comparable, version independence is guaranteed, and pickle
supports a substantially wider range of objects than marshal.
Advertencia
The marshal
module is not intended to be secure against erroneous or
maliciously constructed data. Never unmarshal data received from an
untrusted or unauthenticated source.
Not all Python object types are supported; in general, only objects whose value
is independent from a particular invocation of Python can be written and read by
this module. The following types are supported: booleans, integers, floating
point numbers, complex numbers, strings, bytes, bytearrays, tuples, lists, sets,
frozensets, dictionaries, and code objects, where it should be understood that
tuples, lists, sets, frozensets and dictionaries are only supported as long as
the values contained therein are themselves supported. The
singletons None
, Ellipsis
and StopIteration
can also be
marshalled and unmarshalled.
For format version lower than 3, recursive lists, sets and dictionaries cannot
be written (see below).
There are functions that read/write files as well as functions operating on bytes-like objects.
The module defines these functions:
-
marshal.
dump
(value, file[, version])¶ Write the value on the open file. The value must be a supported type. The file must be a writeable binary file.
If the value has (or contains an object that has) an unsupported type, a
ValueError
exception is raised — but garbage data will also be written to the file. The object will not be properly read back byload()
.The version argument indicates the data format that
dump
should use (see below).
-
marshal.
load
(file)¶ Read one value from the open file and return it. If no valid value is read (e.g. because the data has a different Python version’s incompatible marshal format), raise
EOFError
,ValueError
orTypeError
. The file must be a readable binary file.
-
marshal.
dumps
(value[, version])¶ Return the bytes object that would be written to a file by
dump(value, file)
. The value must be a supported type. Raise aValueError
exception if value has (or contains an object that has) an unsupported type.The version argument indicates the data format that
dumps
should use (see below).
-
marshal.
loads
(bytes)¶ Convert the bytes-like object to a value. If no valid value is found, raise
EOFError
,ValueError
orTypeError
. Extra bytes in the input are ignored.
In addition, the following constants are defined:
-
marshal.
version
¶ Indicates the format that the module uses. Version 0 is the historical format, version 1 shares interned strings and version 2 uses a binary format for floating point numbers. Version 3 adds support for object instancing and recursion. The current version is 4.
Footnotes
[1] | The name of this module stems from a bit of terminology used by the designers of Modula-3 (amongst others), who use the term «marshalling» for shipping of data around in a self-contained form. Strictly speaking, «to marshal» means to convert some data from internal to external form (in an RPC buffer for instance) and «unmarshalling» for the reverse process. |