Python 3.6.5 Documentation >  Data marshalling support

Data marshalling support
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These routines allow C code to work with serialized objects using the
same data format as the "marshal" module. There are functions to
write data into the serialization format, and additional functions
that can be used to read the data back. Files used to store
marshalled data must be opened in binary mode.

Numeric values are stored with the least significant byte first.

The module supports two versions of the data format: version 0 is the
historical version, version 1 shares interned strings in the file, and
upon unmarshalling. Version 2 uses a binary format for floating point
numbers. *Py_MARSHAL_VERSION* indicates the current file format
(currently 2).

void PyMarshal_WriteLongToFile(long value, FILE *file, int version)

Marshal a "long" integer, *value*, to *file*. This will only write
the least-significant 32 bits of *value*; regardless of the size of
the native "long" type. *version* indicates the file format.

void PyMarshal_WriteObjectToFile(PyObject *value, FILE *file, int version)

Marshal a Python object, *value*, to *file*. *version* indicates
the file format.

PyObject* PyMarshal_WriteObjectToString(PyObject *value, int version)
*Return value: New reference.*

Return a bytes object containing the marshalled representation of
*value*. *version* indicates the file format.

The following functions allow marshalled values to be read back in.

XXX What about error detection? It appears that reading past the end
of the file will always result in a negative numeric value (where
that’s relevant), but it’s not clear that negative values won’t be
handled properly when there’s no error. What’s the right way to tell?
Should only non-negative values be written using these routines?

long PyMarshal_ReadLongFromFile(FILE *file)

Return a C "long" from the data stream in a "FILE*" opened for
reading. Only a 32-bit value can be read in using this function,
regardless of the native size of "long".

On error, raise an exception and return "-1".

int PyMarshal_ReadShortFromFile(FILE *file)

Return a C "short" from the data stream in a "FILE*" opened for
reading. Only a 16-bit value can be read in using this function,
regardless of the native size of "short".

On error, raise an exception and return "-1".

PyObject* PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromFile(FILE *file)
*Return value: New reference.*

Return a Python object from the data stream in a "FILE*" opened for
reading.

On error, sets the appropriate exception ("EOFError" or
"TypeError") and returns *NULL*.

PyObject* PyMarshal_ReadLastObjectFromFile(FILE *file)
*Return value: New reference.*

Return a Python object from the data stream in a "FILE*" opened for
reading. Unlike "PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromFile()", this function
assumes that no further objects will be read from the file,
allowing it to aggressively load file data into memory so that the
de-serialization can operate from data in memory rather than
reading a byte at a time from the file. Only use these variant if
you are certain that you won’t be reading anything else from the
file.

On error, sets the appropriate exception ("EOFError" or
"TypeError") and returns *NULL*.

PyObject* PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromString(const char *data, Py_ssize_t len)
*Return value: New reference.*

Return a Python object from the data stream in a byte buffer
containing *len* bytes pointed to by *data*.

On error, sets the appropriate exception ("EOFError" or
"TypeError") and returns *NULL*.