On Jul 15, 11:35 am, Dieter Maurer <die...@handshake.de> wrote: > moo...@yahoo.co.uk writes: > > ... > > Does pickle have any advantages over json/yaml? > > It can store and retrieve almost any Python object with almost no effort. > > Up to you whether you see it as an advantage to be able to store > objects rather than (almost) pure data with a rather limited type set. > > Of course, "pickle" is a proprietary Python format. Not so easy to > decode it with something else than Python. In addition, when > you store objects, the retrieving application must know the classes > of those objects -- and its knowledge should not be too different > from how those classes looked when the objects have been stored. > > I like very much to work with objects (rather than with pure data). > Therefore, I use "pickle" when I know that the storing and retrieving > applications all use Python. I use pure (and restricted) data formats > when non Python applications come into play.
Pickle -> JSON -> Yaml are roughly in increasing order of human-friendliness and decreasing order of machine friendliness (where machine means python 'machine') This means that - Pickle is most efficient, Yaml least - Pickle comes with python from as far back as I know Json started coming somewhere round 2.5 (I think) (py)yaml needs to be installed separately - reading pickled data will spoil your eyes whereas yaml is pleasant to read (just like python) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
