Glossary

metadatum

A key-value pair included in the HTTP header. It is a 2-tuple where the first entry is the key and the second is the value, i.e. (key, value). The metadata key is an ASCII str, and must be a valid HTTP header name. The metadata value can be either a valid HTTP ASCII str, or bytes. If bytes are provided, the key must end with ‘-bin’, i.e. ('binary-metadata-bin', b'\\x00\\xFF')

metadata

A sequence of metadatum.

serializer

A callable function that encodes an object into bytes. Applications are allowed to provide any customized serializer, so there isn’t a restriction for the input object (i.e. even None). On the server-side, the serializer is invoked with server handler’s return value; on the client-side, the serializer is invoked with outbound message objects.

deserializer

A callable function that decodes bytes into an object. Same as serializer, the returned object doesn’t have restrictions (i.e. None allowed). The deserializer is invoked with inbound message bytes on both the server side and the client-side.