Pymarshaler - Marshal and Unmarshal Python Objects
Disclaimer
This tool is in no way production ready
About
Pymarshaler allows you to marshal and unmarshal any python object directly to and from a JSON formatted string.
Pymarshaler takes advantage of python's new typing support. By reading class init param types, we are able to walk down nested JSON structures and assign appropriate values.
Basic Usage
Declare a class with typing information
Note, we can use regular old classes as long as their init methods are annotated properly, but it's preferable to use dataclasses whenever possible
from dataclasses import dataclass
@dataclass
class Test:
name: str
That's it! We can now marshal, and more importantly, unmarshal this object to and from JSON.
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
import json
test_instance = Test('foo')
blob = Marshal.marshal(test_instance)
print(blob.decode())
>>> '{name: foo}'
marshal = Marshal()
result = marshal.unmarshal(Test, json.loads(blob))
print(result.name)
>>> 'foo'
We also use marshal.unmarshal_str(cls, str)
if we want to unmarshal directly from the blob source.
This is a pretty trivial example, lets add in a nested class
from dataclasses import dataclass
@dataclass
class StoresTest:
test: Test
stores_test = StoresTest(Test('foo'))
blob = marshal.marshal(stores_test)
print(blob)
>>> '{test: {name: foo}}'
result = marshal.unmarshal(StoresTest, json.loads(blob))
print(result.test.name)
>>> 'foo'
As you can see, adding a nested class is as simple as as adding a basic structure.
Pymarshaler will fail when encountering an unknown field by default, however you can configure it to ignore unknown fields
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
from pymarshaler.arg_delegates import ArgBuilderFactory
marshal = Marshal()
blob = {'test': 'foo', 'unused_field': 'blah'}
result = marshal.unmarshal(Test, blob)
>>> 'Found unknown field (unused_field: blah). If you would like to skip unknown fields create a Marshal object who can skip ignore_unknown_fields'
marhsal = Marshal(ignore_unknown_fields=True)
result = marshal.unmarshal(Test, blob)
print(result.name)
>>> 'foo'
Advanced Usage
We can use pymarshaler to handle containers as well. Again we take advantage of python's robust typing system
from dataclasses import dataclass
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
from typing import Set
import json
@dataclass
class TestContainer:
container: Set[str]
marshal = Marshal()
container_instance = TestContainer({'foo', 'bar'})
blob = marshal.marshal(container_instance)
print(blob.decode())
>>> '{container: ["foo", "bar"]}'
result = marshal.unmarshal(TestContainer,json.loads(blob))
print(result.container)
>>> '{foo, bar}'
Pymarshaler can also handle containers that store user defined types. The Set[str]
could easily have been Set[UserDefinedType]
Pymarshaler also supports default values, and will use any default values supplied in the __init__
if those values aren't present in the JSON data.
from dataclasses import dataclass
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
@dataclass
class TestWithDefault:
name: str = 'foo'
marshal = Marshal()
result = marshal.unmarshal(TestWithDefault, {})
print(result.name)
>>> 'foo'
Pymarshaler will raise an error if any non-default attributes aren't given
Pymarshaler also supports a validate method on creation of the python object. This method will be called before being returned to the user.
from dataclasses import dataclass
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
@dataclass
class TestWithValidate:
name: str
def validate(self):
print(f'My name is {self.name}!')
marshal = Marshal()
result = marshal.unmarshal(TestWithValidate, {'name': 'foo'})
>>> 'My name is foo!'
This can be used to validate the python object right at construction, potentially raising an error if any of the fields have invalid values
It's also possible to register your own custom unmarshaler for specific user defined classes.
from dataclasses import dataclass
from pymarshaler.arg_delegates import ArgBuilderDelegate
from pymarshaler.marshal import Marshal
@dataclass
class ClassWithMessage:
message: str
class ClassWithCustomDelegate:
def __init__(self, message_obj: ClassWithMessage):
self.message_obj = message_obj
class CustomDelegate(ArgBuilderDelegate):
def __init__(self, cls):
super().__init__(cls)
def resolve(self, data):
return ClassWithCustomDelegate(ClassWithMessage(data['message']))
marshal = Marshal()
marshal.register_delegate(ClassWithCustomDelegate, CustomDelegate)
result = marshal.unmarshal(ClassWithCustomDelegate, {'message': 'Hello from the custom delegate!'})
print(result.message_obj)
>>> 'Hello from the custom delegate!'
The result from any delegate should be the initialized resulting class instance