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-rw-r--r--Doc/api/utilities.tex80
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diff --git a/Doc/api/utilities.tex b/Doc/api/utilities.tex
index 5820524..2e8465b 100644
--- a/Doc/api/utilities.tex
+++ b/Doc/api/utilities.tex
@@ -269,6 +269,86 @@ struct _inittab {
\end{cfuncdesc}
+\section{Data marshalling support \label{marshalling-utils}}
+
+These routines allow C code to work with serialized objects using the
+same data format as the \module{marshal} module. There are functions
+to write data into the serialization format, and additional functions
+that can be used to read the data back. Files used to store marshalled
+data must be opened in binary mode.
+
+Numeric values are stored with the least significant byte first.
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{void}{PyMarshal_WriteLongToFile}{long value, FILE *file}
+ Marshal a \ctype{long} integer, \var{value}, to \var{file}. This
+ will only write the least-significant 32 bits of \var{value};
+ regardless of the size of the native \ctype{long} type.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{void}{PyMarshal_WriteShortToFile}{short value, FILE *file}
+ Marshal a \ctype{short} integer, \var{value}, to \var{file}.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{void}{PyMarshal_WriteObjectToFile}{PyObject *value,
+ FILE *file}
+ Marshal a Python object, \var{value}, to \var{file}. This
+ will only write the least-significant 16 bits of \var{value};
+ regardless of the size of the native \ctype{short} type.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{PyObject*}{PyMarshal_WriteObjectToString}{PyObject *value}
+ Return a string object containing the marshalled representation of
+ \var{value}.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+The following functions allow marshalled values to be read back in.
+
+XXX What about error detection? It appears that reading past the end
+of the file will always result in a negative numeric value (where
+that's relevant), but it's not clear that negative values won't be
+handled properly when there's no error. What's the right way to tell?
+Should only non-negative values be written using these routines?
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{long}{PyMarshal_ReadLongFromFile}{FILE *file}
+ Return a C \ctype{long} from the data stream in a \ctype{FILE*}
+ opened for reading. Only a 32-bit value can be read in using
+ this function, regardless of the native size of \ctype{long}.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{int}{PyMarshal_ReadShortFromFile}{FILE *file}
+ Return a C \ctype{short} from the data stream in a \ctype{FILE*}
+ opened for reading. Only a 16-bit value can be read in using
+ this function, regardless of the native size of \ctype{long}.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{PyObject*}{PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromFile}{FILE *file}
+ Return a Python object from the data stream in a \ctype{FILE*}
+ opened for reading. On error, sets the appropriate exception
+ (\exception{EOFError} or \exception{TypeError}) and returns \NULL.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{PyObject*}{PyMarshal_ReadLastObjectFromFile}{FILE *file}
+ Return a Python object from the data stream in a \ctype{FILE*}
+ opened for reading. Unlike
+ \cfunction{PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromFile()}, this function assumes
+ that no further objects will be read from the file, allowing it to
+ aggressively load file data into memory so that the de-serialization
+ can operate from data in memory rather than reading a byte at a time
+ from the file. Only use these variant if you are certain that you
+ won't be reading anything else from the file. On error, sets the
+ appropriate exception (\exception{EOFError} or
+ \exception{TypeError}) and returns \NULL.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+\begin{cfuncdesc}{PyObject*}{PyMarshal_ReadObjectFromString}{char *string,
+ int len}
+ Return a Python object from the data stream in a character buffer
+ containing \var{len} bytes pointed to by \var{string}. On error,
+ sets the appropriate exception (\exception{EOFError} or
+ \exception{TypeError}) and returns \NULL.
+\end{cfuncdesc}
+
+
\section{Parsing arguments and building values
\label{arg-parsing}}