rwa-python 0.10

HDF5-based serialization library for Python datatypes

RWA-python

RWA-python serializes Python datatypes and stores them in HDF5 files.

Code example

In module A referenced in sys.path:

class CustomClass(object):
  def __init__(self, arg=None):
    self.attr = arg

In module B:

from A import CustomClass
from rwa import HDF5Store

# make any complex construct
any_object = CustomClass((CustomClass('a'), dict(b=1)))

# serialize
hdf5 = HDF5Store('my_file.h5', 'w')
hdf5.poke('my object', any_object)
hdf5.close()

# deserialize
hdf5 = HDF5Store('my_file.h5', 'r')
reloaded_object = hdf5.peek('my object')
hdf5.close()

Introduction

With Python3, RWA-python serialization is fully automatic for types with slots defined or such that the init constructor does not require any input argument.

The library generates serialization schemes for most custom types. When deserializing objects, it also looks for and loads the modules where the corresponding types are defined.

If RWA-python complains about a type that cannot be serialized, a partial fix consists of ignoring this datatype:

hdf5_not_storable(type(unserializable_object))

With Python2, the library requires explicit definitions in most cases. In addition, string typing is sometimes problematic. Non-ascii characters should be explicit unicode.

Installation

Python >= 3.6 is required. RWA-python may still work with Python 2.7 and 3.5 but support has been dropped.

Windows users should favor Conda for installing RWA-python, as Conda will seamlessly install the HDF5 standard library which is a required dependency.

For other users, pip should work just fine:

pip install --user rwa-python

pip install will install some Python dependencies if missing, but you may still need to install the HDF5 reference library. Note that most package managers include this library.

The RWA-python package can also be installed using Conda:

conda install rwa-python -c conda-forge

or poetry:

poetry add rwa-python

See also

RWA-python is on readthedocs.