storable 1.2.4

Python Perl Storable module

Overview

This is a Python module that is be able to read Perl storable files. Storable is a nice and efficient binary format for Perl that is very popular. A lot of other serialization/deserialization modules exist that are even more or less standardized: JSON, XML, CSV,.. etc. Storable is more or less Perl specific.

To ease integration between Perl - where storable sometimes is the only option - and Python this module is a bridge.

The module has been tested to work with Python 2.7 and upwards.

Warning

Perl Scalar Handling

Care has to be taken when dealing with Perl “scalars”. They are a bit “magical” in that they can behave like different types depending on how they are used. This is currently not supported directly in Python, and neither does this library provide a suitable abstraction!

The way this is currently handled is that types are “guessed” in a fairly iffy manner! The value is tried to be converted to different types (at the time of this writing: float → int → ASCII-string). The first one that matches wins. This means that The Perl scalar “123” will always be returned as an integer

Quick Usage

from storable import retrieve
data = retrieve('/path/to/file.storable')

from storable.output import serialize
# only works (so far) for JSON-able types and recursion-limited depth
# This will not serialize to the exact same object in perl as retrieve/thaw-ing
# but will be readable by perl to load json-like values
serialized_bytes = serialize({'x': 'bar', 'y': 1, 'z': 1.23, 'w':[], 'v':[1,2,3]})