marshalling data structures between perl <-> php <-> python

[Kragen Sitaker]

Tripp Scott <tripps81 at yahoo.com> writes:
> aside from using XML-RPC, what python module can i use to 
> marshall data structures (possibly a combination of lists, 
> dictionaries, and scalars of ints, floats, ascii strings, and 
> null values) between these three languages? i prefer a compact, 
> common binary format rather than XML.

"common"?  Well, there's pickle, but it's not very "common".  Can you
give an example of a format you'd like?