Using pickle.dump - TypeError: must be str, not bytes

Question

The output file needs to be opened in binary mode:

f = open('varstor.txt','w')

needs to be:

f = open('varstor.txt','wb')

Just had same issue. In Python 3, Binary modes 'wb', 'rb' must be specified whereas in Python 2x, they are not needed. When you follow tutorials that are based on Python 2x, that's why you are here.

import pickle

class MyUser(object):
    def __init__(self,name):
        self.name = name

user = MyUser('Peter')

print("Before serialization: ")
print(user.name)
print("------------")
serialized = pickle.dumps(user)
filename = 'serialized.native'

with open(filename,'wb') as file_object:
    file_object.write(serialized)

with open(filename,'rb') as file_object:
    raw_data = file_object.read()

deserialized = pickle.loads(raw_data)


print("Loading from serialized file: ")
user2 = deserialized
print(user2.name)
print("------------")

pickle uses a binary protocol, hence only accepts binary files. As the document said in the first sentence, "The pickle module implements binary protocols for serializing and de-serializing".