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> I suggest that array.array be changed in Python 2 to allow unicode strings 
> as a typecode or that pickle detects array.array being called and fixes 
> the call.
Interestingly, py3 does understand arrays pickled by py2. This appears to be because py2 pickles str using BINSTRING or SHORT_BINSTRING which will unpickle as str on py2 and py3. py3 pickles str using BINUNICODE which will unpickle as unicode on py2 and str on py3.
I think it would be better to fix this in py3 if possible, but that does not look easy: modifying array.__reduce_ex__ alone would not be enough.
The only thing I can think of is for py3 to grow a "_binstr" type which only supports ascii strings and is special-cased by pickle to be pickled using BINSTRING. Then array.__reduce_ex__ could be something like:
 def __reduce_ex__(self, protocol):
 if protocol <= 2:
 return array.array, (_binstr(self.typecode), list(self))
 else:
 ...