This issue tracker has been migrated to GitHub, and is currently read-only.
For more information, see the GitHub FAQs in the Python's Developer Guide.

classification
Title: Decide what to do with bytes/str when transferring pickles between 2.6 and 3.0
Type: behavior Stage:
Components: Library (Lib) Versions: Python 3.0
process
Status: closed Resolution: fixed
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: gvanrossum Nosy List: alexandre.vassalotti, gvanrossum
Priority: high Keywords:

Created on 2008-03-16 21:16 by gvanrossum, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Messages (3)
msg63593 - (view) Author: Guido van Rossum (gvanrossum) * (Python committer) Date: 2008-03-16 21:16
A pickled str instance written by 2.6 currently unpickles under 3.0 as a
bytes instance. That would be correct if the intended use is binary
data, but it's wrong if the intended use is text. My hunch is that
there's more pickled text than binary data. (E.g. a dict containing
instance variables uses (8-bit) str instances for the keys; these *must*
be unpacked as (Unicode) str instances in 3.0.)

The inverse issue also exists.

We need to DECIDE this before starting to code (coding is probably
minimal).  I'm assigning the task to DECIDE (after discussion on the
list) to myself.
msg63678 - (view) Author: Guido van Rossum (gvanrossum) * (Python committer) Date: 2008-03-17 17:15
We have a proposed solution for 2.x -> 3.x.  In 3.x, an (8-bit) str
instance received from 2.x will be decoded into a (Unicode) str
instance.  The encoding defaults to ASCII; you can specify a different
encoding and also an error value on the load() or loads() call.

This of course doesn't solve all problems; str instances representing
binary data will be unpickled as strings.  The app will have to deal
with this.

By default 3.x will *write* pickles using a new version number which is
incompatible with 2.x.  I'm not sure yet if we should allow writing
pickles in 3.x that can be read in 2.x; we need use cases for that.
msg63801 - (view) Author: Guido van Rossum (gvanrossum) * (Python committer) Date: 2008-03-17 22:58
Checked in as r61467.

When pickling a bytes instance in a protocol < 3, it is pickled as a
user-defined type (essentially faking a __reduce__ operation) which can
be read back correctly in 3.0 but probably not in 2.x.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:56:31adminsetgithub: 46560
2008-03-17 22:58:17gvanrossumsetstatus: open -> closed
resolution: accepted -> fixed
messages: + msg63801
versions: - Python 2.6
2008-03-17 20:29:45alexandre.vassalottisetnosy: + alexandre.vassalotti
2008-03-17 17:15:11gvanrossumsetresolution: accepted
messages: + msg63678
2008-03-17 17:11:28gvanrossumlinkissue2324 superseder
2008-03-16 21:16:02gvanrossumcreate