help on pickle tool

[virg]

Hi,
     i have client-server application which is written in python using
XMLRPC protocol. The existing client is a command line. Now client
application we are converting it as Web UI using java. I have seen some
problems in writing a java client. At the server for each request from
client, the server sends a response in hashtable and is serialized
using "pickle". The python function we call at the server is

pickle.dumps(r, 2)  -- where r is a hash table which needs to be
serialized

At the client (existing client  which in python) we use this call to
get the original data.

r = pickle.loads(result)

Since i am writing this client as Web UI client using java, i am not
able to deserialize this data
using java function "ObjectInputStream" and "ObjectInputStream" which
are most common functions for deserialization and i getting error as
invalid header.

Is it possible to deserialize the data by java  which serialized by
Python or is there any compatibility issue. Is there any equivalent
pickle tool on java which supports this operation. so that i can use
across languages.

Because of this problem i am not able to proceed further. Any body has
any pointers for this problem. Any help is highly appreciated

Thanks in advance

regards
Virg