Serialization, save type information in file and restore them

[Timothy Wu]

Hi,

I created a class that's able to manipulate tabulated data. I want to be
able to dump the bulk of the data and other attributes as a tab-delimited
text. I have trouble saving/restoring type information in the file. For
example, some attributes are int, others may be float, etc. So I want to
store the data type as well as the data value themselves in a file. And I
don't think I want to use Pickle because I want it to be readily opened in
vi and be readable as a tab-delimited file and be able to import into Excel
as well.

What's the best way to achieve this? I was able to write string like
"attribute = int(value)" into a file. But how do I get the value back? I
want the "int(value)" string to be loaded into the program and be executable
so I can actually create the instance variable in the class.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Timothy
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