[ZODB-Dev] ZODB alternate serialization format patch

[Shane Hathaway]

Jim and ZODB Developers,

I have just created a patch for ZODB that makes the object serialization 
format pluggable, meaning that it should now be possible to write Python 
code that causes ZODB to store in formats other than Python pickles.

I have created two versions of the patch, one for ZODB 3.8 and one for 
the ZODB trunk:

http://svn.zope.org/Sandbox/shane/serialization-format-ZODB-3-8.patch?view=markup
http://svn.zope.org/Sandbox/shane/serialization-format-ZODB-trunk.patch?view=markup

In addition to making the data format pluggable, the patch puts most of 
ZODB's dependencies on the cPickle module in one place, so now if we 
decide to improve our usage of the cPickle module, we can make that 
change in one place rather than several.  Revision 92821, for example, 
probably would have required a change to only one module.

Revision 92821: http://svn.zope.org/ZODB/trunk?rev=92821&view=rev

How would you feel about including this in ZODB 3.9?  Note that this is 
completely distinct from the shane-poll-invalidations branch that 
RelStorage needs, although the two patches are intended to be complementary.

Shane