Pickle - Python object serialization

When “pickel-ing” you convert a python object into bytecode and then you can save that to a file etc.

You use dumps() for serializing and loads() for de-serializing the object.

l = [i for i in range(10)]
l

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

dumps()

import pickle as p
picl = p.dumps(l)
picl

b'\x80\x03]q\x00(K\x00K\x01K\x02K\x03K\x04K\x05K\x06K\x07K\x08K\te.'

with open('testfiles/list.pickle', 'bw') as f:
    f.write(picl)

with open('testfiles/list.pickle', 'br') as f:
    out = f.read()
out

b'\x80\x03]q\x00(K\x00K\x01K\x02K\x03K\x04K\x05K\x06K\x07K\x08K\te.'

loads()

p.loads(out)

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Try to save a non-serialized object

with open('testfiles/list.txt', 'w', encoding='utf8') as f:
    f.write(l)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-68e8fb8dafc7> in <module>
      1 with open('testfiles/list.txt', 'w', encoding='utf8') as f:
----> 2     f.write(l)

TypeError: write() argument must be str, not list