kombu/docs/userguide/serialization.rst

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.. _guide-serialization:
===============
Serialization
===============
.. _serializers:
Serializers
===========
By default every message is encoded using `JSON`_, so sending
Python data structures like dictionaries and lists works.
`YAML`_, `msgpack`_ and Python's built-in `pickle` module is also supported,
and if needed you can register any custom serialization scheme you
want to use.
.. _`JSON`: http://www.json.org/
.. _`YAML`: http://yaml.org/
.. _`msgpack`: http://msgpack.sourceforge.net/
Each option has its advantages and disadvantages.
`json` -- JSON is supported in many programming languages, is now
a standard part of Python (since 2.6), and is fairly fast to
decode using the modern Python libraries such as `cjson` or
`simplejson`.
The primary disadvantage to `JSON` is that it limits you to
the following data types: strings, unicode, floats, boolean,
dictionaries, and lists. Decimals and dates are notably missing.
Also, binary data will be transferred using base64 encoding, which
will cause the transferred data to be around 34% larger than an
encoding which supports native binary types.
However, if your data fits inside the above constraints and
you need cross-language support, the default setting of `JSON`
is probably your best choice.
`pickle` -- If you have no desire to support any language other than
Python, then using the `pickle` encoding will gain you
the support of all built-in Python data types (except class instances),
smaller messages when sending binary files, and a slight speedup
over `JSON` processing.
`yaml` -- YAML has many of the same characteristics as `json`,
except that it natively supports more data types (including dates,
recursive references, etc.)
However, the Python libraries for YAML are a good bit slower
than the libraries for JSON.
If you need a more expressive set of data types and need to maintain
cross-language compatibility, then `YAML` may be a better fit
than the above.
To instruct carrot to use an alternate serialization method,
use one of the following options.
1. Set the serialization option on a per-producer basis::
>>> producer = Producer(channel,
... exchange=exchange,
... serializer="yaml")
2. Set the serialization option per message::
>>> producer.publish(message, routing_key=rkey,
... serializer="pickle")
Note that a `Consumer` do not need the serialization method specified.
They can auto-detect the serialization method as the
content-type is sent as a message header.
.. _sending-raw-data:
Sending raw data without Serialization
======================================
In some cases, you don't need your message data to be serialized. If you
pass in a plain string or unicode object as your message, then carrot will
not waste cycles serializing/deserializing the data.
You can optionally specify a `content_type` and `content_encoding`
for the raw data::
>>> producer.send(open('~/my_picture.jpg','rb').read(),
content_type="image/jpeg",
content_encoding="binary",
routing_key=rkey)
The `Message` object returned by the `Consumer` class will have a
`content_type` and `content_encoding` attribute.