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authorNeal Norwitz <nnorwitz@gmail.com>2003-02-21 00:26:33 (GMT)
committerNeal Norwitz <nnorwitz@gmail.com>2003-02-21 00:26:33 (GMT)
commitd08baa95042c349a7129e1857678a74446b9b232 (patch)
tree857854e49809fc93163edee3b2b0ff3852089987 /Doc/lib
parent850566b644142f8698d691782e7ef3fa8d7a6cf8 (diff)
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Add some notes about HIGHEST_PROTOCOL.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/lib')
-rw-r--r--Doc/lib/libpickle.tex19
1 files changed, 15 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/lib/libpickle.tex b/Doc/lib/libpickle.tex
index 2f5d2ec..92a7989 100644
--- a/Doc/lib/libpickle.tex
+++ b/Doc/lib/libpickle.tex
@@ -144,8 +144,9 @@ much more efficient pickling of new-style classes.
Refer to PEP 307 for more information.
If a \var{protocol} is not specified, protocol 0 is used.
-If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value,
-the highest protocol version will be used.
+If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value
+or \constant{HIGHEST_PROTOCOL},
+the highest protocol version available will be used.
\versionchanged[The \var{bin} parameter is deprecated and only provided
for backwards compatibility. You should use the \var{protocol}
@@ -162,6 +163,14 @@ To serialize an object hierarchy, you first create a pickler, then you
call the pickler's \method{dump()} method. To de-serialize a data
stream, you first create an unpickler, then you call the unpickler's
\method{load()} method. The \module{pickle} module provides the
+following constant:
+
+\begin{datadesc}{HIGHEST_PROTOCOL}
+The highest protocol version available. This value can be passed
+as a \var{protocol} value.
+\end{datadesc}
+
+The \module{pickle} module provides the
following functions to make this process more convenient:
\begin{funcdesc}{dump}{object, file\optional{, protocol\optional{, bin}}}
@@ -170,7 +179,8 @@ Write a pickled representation of \var{object} to the open file object
\code{Pickler(\var{file}, \var{protocol}, \var{bin}).dump(\var{object})}.
If the \var{protocol} parameter is ommitted, protocol 0 is used.
-If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value,
+If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value
+or \constant{HIGHEST_PROTOCOL},
the highest protocol version will be used.
\versionchanged[The \var{protocol} parameter was added.
@@ -209,7 +219,8 @@ Return the pickled representation of the object as a string, instead
of writing it to a file.
If the \var{protocol} parameter is ommitted, protocol 0 is used.
-If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value,
+If \var{protocol} is specified as a negative value
+or \constant{HIGHEST_PROTOCOL},
the highest protocol version will be used.
\versionchanged[The \var{protocol} parameter was added.