Background: I am working on a Python project where, given a set of input files (text/image/audio), it generates an executable game. The text files are there to describe the rules of the game.
Currently, the program reads and parses the files upon each startup, and builds a Python class that contains these rules, as well as links to image/audio files. This is fine for now, but I don’t want the end executable to have to bundle these files and re-parse them each time it gets run.
My question: Is there a way to persist the instance of my class to disk, as it exists in memory? Kind of like a snapshot of the object. Since this is a Python project, my question is specific to Python. But, I’d be curious if this concept exists anywhere else. I’ve never heard of it.
My aim is not to serialize/de-serialize the class to a text file, but instead load the 1’s and 0’s that existed before into an instance of a class.
What is the “executable” in this context? I’m kinda confused as to what you are looking for.
What’s wrong with parsing the input files at runtime? Is it performance? Do you want one file to load instead of multiple?
Many have suggested pickle, which is kinda what you are asking for, but on some level it’s not much different from parsing the input files. Also, depending on your code, you may have to write custom serialization code as part of getting pickle to work.
Note that pretty much every modern game is a bundle of often multiple pieces of executable code alongside a whole bunch of separate assets.