# Marshal Problem

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 7, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437 "2006-07-07T02:50:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/1 "2006-07-07T02:50:15Z")

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Hi,

I’ve got a serialized object that I am trying to read back in with  
Marshal. When it reads the class back in, it complains with the  
following message:

undefined class/module ;

This is running on windows. Under Mac OS X, everything works fine  
(Note: I serialize and de-serialize on the same platform, so it’s not  
a cross platform issue.)

Anyone have any clues as to why it is looking to resolve a class  
called “;” from the serialized file?

Thanks,  
Bob E.

Agitar Software  
Know Your Code, Trust Your Code

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**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 3:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/2 "2006-07-07T03:33:18Z")

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On Jul 6, 2006, at 5:47 PM, Robert E. wrote:

> Anyone have any clues as to why it is looking to resolve a class  
> called “;” from the serialized file?

What are the ruby versions? Do you have the same classes loaded on  
each side?

–  
Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://blog.segment7.net](http://blog.segment7.net)  
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

[http://trackmap.robotcoop.com](http://trackmap.robotcoop.com)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/3 "2006-07-07T21:14:04Z")

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Hi Eric,

The Mac OS X version, which works is 1.8.4 (2005-12-24). The windows  
version is ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-mswin32].

The same classes are used to dump and load, from the same irb session  
even.

Bob

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/4 "2006-07-09T16:48:17Z")

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Hi,

The objects involved were fairly complex, so I will try to create a  
simpler case that exhibits the problem.

Bob

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/5 "2006-07-08T19:10:32Z")

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Hi,

In message “Re: Marshal Problem”  
on Sat, 8 Jul 2006 04:13:11 +0900, Robert E.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:

|The same classes are used to dump and load, from the same irb session  
|even.

Can you show us how to reproduce the problem?

```
						matz.

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@revans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/revans)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/marshal-problem/97437/6 "2006-07-25T02:05:45Z")

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Hi,

Following up. I finally got back to this issue, and now everything  
works fine.  
I believe the problem may have had to do with reading and writing the  
files that contained the marshalled objects without using the binary  
flag.

Thanks for your help,  
Bob