Serizalize an array in Python

Question

I ´m trying to serialize an array in python to insert it on a database of MySQL... I try with pickle.dump() method but it returns byte... what can I use?? thanks!!

(I ´m working in python 3)

Answer 1

You can try to use json to turn it into a string, like this:

import json

v = [1, 2, 4]
s = json.dumps(v)

Answer 2

Pickle is a binary serialization, that's why you get a byte string.

Pros:

• more compact
• can express most of Python's objects.

Con's:

• bytes can be harder to handle
• Python only.

JSON is more universal, so you're not tied to reading data with Python. It's also mostly ASCII, so it's easier to handle. the con is that it's limited to numbers, strings, arrays and dicts. usually enough, but even datetimes have to be converted to string representation before encoding.