Why can't you pickle instancemethods?

[Chris]

Why can pickle serialize references to functions, but not methods?

Pickling a function serializes the function name, but pickling a
staticmethod, classmethod, or instancemethod generates an error. In
these cases, pickle knows the instance or class, and the method, so
what's the problem? Pickle doesn't serialize code objects, so why can't
it serialize the name as it does for functions? Is this one of those
features that's feasible, but not useful, so no one's ever gotten
around to implementing it?

Regards,
Chris

>>> import pickle
>>>
>>> def somefunc():
...     return 1
...
>>> class Functions(object):
...     @staticmethod
...     def somefunc():
...         return 1
...
>>> class Foo(object):
...     pass
...
>>> f = Foo()
>>> f.value = somefunc
>>> print pickle.dumps(f)
ccopy_reg
_reconstructor
p0
(c__main__
Foo
p1
c__builtin__
object
p2
Ntp3
Rp4
(dp5
S'value'
p6
c__main__
somefunc
p7
sb.
>>>
>>> f.value = Functions.somefunc
>>> print pickle.dumps(f)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 1386, in dumps
    Pickler(file, protocol, bin).dump(obj)
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 231, in dump
    self.save(obj)
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 338, in save
    self.save_reduce(obj=obj, *rv)
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 433, in
save_reduce
    save(state)
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 293, in save
    f(self, obj) # Call unbound method with explicit self
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 663, in
save_dict
    self._batch_setitems(obj.iteritems())
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 677, in
_batch_setitems
    save(v)
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 293, in save
    f(self, obj) # Call unbound method with explicit self
  File "C:\Program Files\Python24\lib\pickle.py", line 765, in
save_global
    raise PicklingError(
pickle.PicklingError: Can't pickle <function somefunc at 0x009EC5F0>:
it's not the same object as __
main__.somefunc