File Management in Python - Pickling Data
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Using the methods covered in the previous section, it is possible to read strings from files and write strings to files. However, in some situations, you may need to pass other types of data, such as lists, tuples, dictionaries and other objects. In Python, this is possible through a method known as pickling. To pickle data, you would use the "pickle" module included in the standard library.

 

Let's start by pickling a short list of strings and integers: 

import pickle

fileHandle = open ( 'pickleFile.txt', 'w' )

testList = [ 'This', 2, 'is', 1, 'a', 0, 'test.' ]

pickle.dump ( testList, fileHandle )

fileHandle.close() 

Unpickling the data is just as easy: 

import pickle

fileHandle = open ( 'pickleFile.txt' )

testList = pickle.load ( fileHandle )

fileHandle.cloes() 

We can also store more complex data: 

import pickle

fileHandle = open ( 'pickleFile.txt', 'w' )

testList = [ 123, { 'Calories' : 190 }, 'Mr. Anderson', [ 1, 2, 7 ] ]

pickle.dump ( testList, fileHandle )

fileHandle.close()

 

import pickle

fileHandle = open ( 'pickleFile.txt' )

testList = pickle.load ( fileHandle )

fileHandle.close() 

As you can see, pickling is extremely easy to do with Python's "pickle" module. Numeous objects may be stored in files with it. You can also use the "cPickle" module if it is availible to you. It's exactly the same as the "pickle" modue, but it's faster: 

import cPickle

fileHandle = open ( 'pickleFile.txt', 'w' )

cPickle.dump ( 1776, fileHandle )

fileHandle.close() 

Next: Creating In-memory Files >>
 

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