Allowing Subclassing of Pickler

[bensusman]

Adding to allow for custom pickle implementation (working on implemeting a lighter-weight streaming version of pickle)

Simply making private variables protected to allow for subclasses.

[irmen]

Can you add some clues as to why you need direct access to these private fields? Can't you do it via virtual methods?

[bensusman]

In general, I found I could not effectively subclass Pickle without access to these fields.

For example, it is not apparent to me how I can effectively set the private OutputStream out such that when calling the public void save(Object o) method will not result in an Exception.

Is your suggestion to expose these fields as getters/setters rather than making the fields protected or did you have something else in mind?

[irmen]

I was thinking you could perhaps simply override the save method. Also, are you aware of the registerCustomPickler method? I would think that this allows you to register a special kind of pickler that streams the objects into the pickle?

[bensusman]

Thank you for the comment.

I think there is a basic issue with trying to override the save method: It appears to me not possible to subsequently use a bulk of the already defined methods / implementation.

For example, if I override save:

• I cannot use or rely on the Pickler to call the dispatch method.
• Memoizing cannot work without a custom implementation

In essence, I would essentially be copying the Pickler, but really only need to override the dump method or implement a similar method to dump and have the variables be protected.

[irmen]

And registering a custom pickling class is not enough to achieve your goal either?

I don't really mind to make things public (though for abstraction's sake I'd rather keep stuff private as much as possible) but it's a bit hard to see what you need to do in your situation without seeing the actual code you're writing.

Would it be possible and useful to share your version of the pickler once it's finished?

[bensusman]

It seems that registering a custom pickling class is not enough because we want to be able to separate the objects in a streaming scenario.

In this case, note I am only suggesting that some of this fields become protected to allow for subclassing, not to lift these to public.

I can send you an anonymized code snippet if that would help in understanding the use case.

Thanks. Ben

[irmen]

While not being used, I've made similar changes to the .net version of the pickler. I'd like them to remain in sync.

[bensusman]

Thank you.

Would it be possible to create a release with these changes?

[irmen]

I suppose so, are the current changes enough for your cause?

[bensusman]

Yes . The current changes seem to be enough for what we are working on. Thank you.

[irmen]

Release 4.13 has been uploaded to Nuget and Maven.