[tor-bugs] #13774 [Stem]: Mention pickling in "Mirror Mirror on the Wall"?

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#13774: Mention pickling in "Mirror Mirror on the Wall"?
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     Reporter:  mmcc         |      Owner:  atagar
         Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
     Priority:  trivial      |  Milestone:
    Component:  Stem         |    Version:
   Resolution:               |   Keywords:  Stem, Python, pickle, docs
Actual Points:               |  Parent ID:
       Points:               |
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Comment (by atagar):

 Hi mmcc. The purpose of the DescriptorDownloader is to get the current
 descriptors. As for saving them to disk and reloading them personally I'd
 just dump the descriptor...

 {{{
 with open('/path/to/persist/it', 'w') as dump_file:
   dump_file.write(str(my_descriptor))
 }}}

 Then assuming that it's, say, a server descriptor you'd load it like...

 {{{
 from stem.descriptor import parse_file

 with open('/path/to/persist/it') as dump_file:
   my_descriptor = parse_file(dump_file, 'server-descriptor 1.0')
 }}}

 (this is just off the top of my head - no promises the above doesn't have
 a typo)

 I suppose pickling might have an advantage in terms of space or read time
 (... or could be worse in those regards - would need some testing), but
 regardless I'd trust the above a tad more.

 All that said, adding a section on persisting and reloading descriptors
 sounds like a fine idea. Let me know if you can think of a compelling
 reason to do pickling rather than the above.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13774#comment:1>
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