how do you use pickle?

[Pythor]

John Salerno wrote:
> Pythor wrote:
> > John Salerno wrote:
> >> John Salerno wrote:
> >>> Pythor wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Whis is why I said carefully ;)  I missed it several times myself when
> >>>> I was working on the challenge.
> >>> Ok, frustration has set in again. I see the file name in the source
> >>> code, but am I meant to actually access a file, or just use the name
> >>> itself? I also had to look up what 'banner' meant in Unix, which wasn't
> >>> a very fun thing to have to do for a Python puzzle.
> >> Ah, I should have known we weren't done with URL manipulation yet. Now I
> >> just need to figure out what to do with this source code.
> >
> > Incidentally, there's a forum specifically for posting an receiving
> > hints on the challenges here:
> >
> > http://www.pythonchallenge.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1
> >
> > Not that I mind helping. ;)
> >
>
> Yeah, I read the whole thread for this level and even posted a question,
> but the forums are pretty dead. Not only that, but I'm starting to get
> the feeling that these challenges are going to require a little more
> programming expertise than I have, because all of the 'hints' are still
> too vague for me.
>
> Like I said in my post on the hints forum, I really enjoy figuring out
> how to use Python to solve the puzzles, but it's not very fun when I
> don't know *what* to do in the first place, and I think knowing what to
> do has a lot to do with how experienced you are with certain CS subjects
> and how quickly you can identify the problem and a possible solution.
> All I see is huge bunch of string characters with no idea what to do
> with it to extract any kind of information.

Only a bunch of string characters?  If that's true, you missed
something.  I get a bunch of lists of tuples.  Each tuple has a meaning
associated with the original filename, and an old unix command.  Which
is what confused the heck out of me the first time, not knowing much
Unix.  The command is used to make large signs using old-style dot
matrix printers.    If you want a more coherent hint than that, email
me at pythor @ pythor dot com