1Marshal(3) OCaml library Marshal(3)
2
6 Marshal - Marshaling of data structures.
7
9 Module Marshal
10
12 Module Marshal
13 : sig end
14 Marshaling of data structures.
17 This module provides functions to encode arbitrary data structures as
19 sequences of bytes, which can then be written on a file or sent over a
20 pipe or network connection. The bytes can then be read back later,
21 possibly in another process, and decoded back into a data structure.
22 The format for the byte sequences is compatible across all machines for
23 a given version of OCaml.
24 Warning: marshaling is currently not type-safe. The type of marshaled
26 data is not transmitted along the value of the data, making it impossi‐
27 ble to check that the data read back possesses the type expected by the
28 context. In particular, the result type of the Marshal.from_* functions
29 is given as 'a , but this is misleading: the returned OCaml value does
30 not possess type 'a for all 'a ; it has one, unique type which cannot
31 be determined at compile-time. The programmer should explicitly give
32 the expected type of the returned value, using the following syntax:
33 - (Marshal.from_channel chan : type) . Anything can happen at run-time
35 if the object in the file does not belong to the given type.
36 Values of extensible variant types, for example exceptions (of extensi‐
38 ble type exn ), returned by the unmarshaller should not be pat‐
39 tern-matched over through match ... with or try ... with , because un‐
40 marshalling does not preserve the information required for matching
41 their constructors. Structural equalities with other extensible variant
42 values does not work either. Most other uses such as Print‐
43 exc.to_string, will still work as expected.
44 The representation of marshaled values is not human-readable, and uses
46 bytes that are not printable characters. Therefore, input and output
47 channels used in conjunction with Marshal.to_channel and Mar‐
48 shal.from_channel must be opened in binary mode, using e.g.
49 open_out_bin or open_in_bin ; channels opened in text mode will cause
50 unmarshaling errors on platforms where text channels behave differently
51 than binary channels, e.g. Windows.
52 type extern_flags =
58 | No_sharing (* Don't preserve sharing
59 *)
60 | Closures (* Send function closures
61 *)
62 | Compat_32 (* Ensure 32-bit compatibility
63 *)
64 The flags to the Marshal.to_* functions below.
67 val to_channel : out_channel -> 'a -> extern_flags list -> unit
71 Marshal.to_channel chan v flags writes the representation of v on chan‐
74 nel chan . The flags argument is a possibly empty list of flags that
75 governs the marshaling behavior with respect to sharing, functional
76 values, and compatibility between 32- and 64-bit platforms.
77 If flags does not contain Marshal.No_sharing , circularities and shar‐
79 ing inside the value v are detected and preserved in the sequence of
80 bytes produced. In particular, this guarantees that marshaling always
81 terminates. Sharing between values marshaled by successive calls to
82 Marshal.to_channel is neither detected nor preserved, though. If flags
83 contains Marshal.No_sharing , sharing is ignored. This results in
84 faster marshaling if v contains no shared substructures, but may cause
85 slower marshaling and larger byte representations if v actually con‐
86 tains sharing, or even non-termination if v contains cycles.
87 If flags does not contain Marshal.Closures , marshaling fails when it
89 encounters a functional value inside v : only 'pure' data structures,
90 containing neither functions nor objects, can safely be transmitted be‐
91 tween different programs. If flags contains Marshal.Closures , func‐
92 tional values will be marshaled as a the position in the code of the
93 program together with the values corresponding to the free variables
94 captured in the closure. In this case, the output of marshaling can
95 only be read back in processes that run exactly the same program, with
96 exactly the same compiled code. (This is checked at un-marshaling time,
97 using an MD5 digest of the code transmitted along with the code posi‐
98 tion.)
99 The exact definition of which free variables are captured in a closure
101 is not specified and can vary between bytecode and native code (and ac‐
102 cording to optimization flags). In particular, a function value ac‐
103 cessing a global reference may or may not include the reference in its
104 closure. If it does, unmarshaling the corresponding closure will cre‐
105 ate a new reference, different from the global one.
106 If flags contains Marshal.Compat_32 , marshaling fails when it encoun‐
108 ters an integer value outside the range [-2{^30}, 2{^30}-1] of integers
109 that are representable on a 32-bit platform. This ensures that mar‐
110 shaled data generated on a 64-bit platform can be safely read back on a
111 32-bit platform. If flags does not contain Marshal.Compat_32 , integer
112 values outside the range [-2{^30}, 2{^30}-1] are marshaled, and can be
113 read back on a 64-bit platform, but will cause an error at un-marshal‐
114 ing time when read back on a 32-bit platform. The Mashal.Compat_32
115 flag only matters when marshaling is performed on a 64-bit platform; it
116 has no effect if marshaling is performed on a 32-bit platform.
117 Raises Failure if chan is not in binary mode.
120 val to_bytes : 'a -> extern_flags list -> bytes
124 Marshal.to_bytes v flags returns a byte sequence containing the repre‐
127 sentation of v . The flags argument has the same meaning as for Mar‐
128 shal.to_channel .
129 Since 4.02.0
132 val to_string : 'a -> extern_flags list -> string
136 Same as to_bytes but return the result as a string instead of a byte
138 sequence.
139 val to_buffer : bytes -> int -> int -> 'a -> extern_flags list -> int
143 Marshal.to_buffer buff ofs len v flags marshals the value v , storing
146 its byte representation in the sequence buff , starting at index ofs ,
147 and writing at most len bytes. It returns the number of bytes actually
148 written to the sequence. If the byte representation of v does not fit
149 in len characters, the exception Failure is raised.
150 val from_channel : in_channel -> 'a
154 Marshal.from_channel chan reads from channel chan the byte representa‐
157 tion of a structured value, as produced by one of the Marshal.to_*
158 functions, and reconstructs and returns the corresponding value.
159 Raises End_of_file if chan is already at the end of the file.
162 Raises Failure if the end of the file is reached during unmarshalling
165 itself or if chan is not in binary mode.
166 val from_bytes : bytes -> int -> 'a
170 Marshal.from_bytes buff ofs unmarshals a structured value like Mar‐
173 shal.from_channel does, except that the byte representation is not read
174 from a channel, but taken from the byte sequence buff , starting at po‐
175 sition ofs . The byte sequence is not mutated.
176 Since 4.02.0
179 val from_string : string -> int -> 'a
183 Same as from_bytes but take a string as argument instead of a byte se‐
185 quence.
186 val header_size : int
190 The bytes representing a marshaled value are composed of a fixed-size
192 header and a variable-sized data part, whose size can be determined
193 from the header. Marshal.header_size is the size, in bytes, of the
194 header. Marshal.data_size buff ofs is the size, in bytes, of the data
195 part, assuming a valid header is stored in buff starting at position
196 ofs . Finally, Marshal.total_size buff ofs is the total size, in
197 bytes, of the marshaled value. Both Marshal.data_size and Marshal.to‐
198 tal_size raise Failure if buff , ofs does not contain a valid header.
199 To read the byte representation of a marshaled value into a byte se‐
201 quence, the program needs to read first Marshal.header_size bytes into
202 the sequence, then determine the length of the remainder of the repre‐
203 sentation using Marshal.data_size , make sure the sequence is large
204 enough to hold the remaining data, then read it, and finally call Mar‐
205 shal.from_bytes to unmarshal the value.
206 val data_size : bytes -> int -> int
210 See Marshal.header_size .
212 val total_size : bytes -> int -> int
216 See Marshal.header_size .
218OCamldoc 2023-07-20 Marshal(3)