Martin v. Löwis <mar...@v.loewis.de> added the comment: > Sorry, I don't follow. I realise that the refcounts will be different; > but pickling an object should surely be independent of the refcount as > there is no need to include the refcount in the output?
There certainly is a need to consider the refcount. Else the memo would not work. > What other way (using pickle or not) can I convert a generic immutable > Python object to a string to use as a key in external storage? You will have to come up with your own serialization function. There are MANY reasons why using a pickle cannot work. For example, in a dictionary, the order of keys is not guaranteed, and might change even though the dictionaries compare equal. > Currently the documentation points out that the output may be different > between pickle and cPickle which implies that the output will be > consistent for a single module. I doesn't imply this at all. The sentence says just what it says: don't be surprised if you pickle the same object with pickle and cPickle, and get different results. > If pickle is not required to produce consistent output for the same > input (and refcount isn't really part of the input in this case; it is > a side issue) than can this be documented? It's certainly possible to document that, yes. Can you propose a specific patch to the documentation? ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue5518> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
