xmlrpc.client (and xmlrpclib in 2.x) can't serialize instances of Decimal, throwing TypeError instead. Because XML is a textual format, converting from decimal to float may cause loss of data.

According to http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec, encoding Decimal as XML-RPC <double /> is allowed: "The range of allowable values is implementation-dependent, is not specified." Therefore, including decimal numbers that can not be represented by IEEE double is allowed by the spec.

Also, in my opinion, making a numeric type available in standard library unsupported by another part of standard library, is counterintuitive, but it's just my personal point of view.

I can provide a patch if this bug report is considered proper.