[Python-Dev] marshal (was:Buffer interface in abstract.c? )

[Jack Jansen]

Recently, Greg Stein <gstein@lyra.org> said:
> I would suggest backing out the marshalling of buffer-interface objects
> and adding a mechanism for arbitrary type objects to marshal themselves.
> Without the second part, arrays and Unicode objects aren't marshallable
> at all (seems bad).

This sounds like the right approach. It would require 2 slots in the
tp_ structure and a little extra glue for the typecodes (currently
marshall knows all the 1-letter typecodes for all objecttypes it can
handle, but types marshalling their own objects would require a
centralized registry of object types. For the time being it would
probably suffice to have the mapping of type<->letter be hardcoded in
marshal.h, but eventually you probably want a more extensible scheme,
where Joe R. Extension-Writer could add a marshaller to his objects
and know it won't collide with someone else's.

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