blast.save() TypeError: Object of type 'bytes' is not JSON serializable

[RuiyuRayWang]

Hi, thanks for building this great tool!

I have successfully computed 5 DIRECTi models and created a blast object. However, when I tried to save it I received the following error messages:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-26-1abd49d75b19> in <module>
----> 1 blast.save("../data/NEMO_ARCHIVE/Yao_mouse_MOp_Miniatlas/SMARTer_cells_MOp/outs/yao_MOp_blast")
      2 
      3 # This loads the blast object directly to memory
      4 # blast = cb.blast.BLAST.load("../data/Baron_2016_Pancreas/baron_human_blast")

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/site-packages/Cell_BLAST/blast.py in save(self, path, only_used_genes)
    690             ref.write_dataset(os.path.join(path, "ref.h5"))
    691         for i in range(len(self)):
--> 692             self.models[i].save(os.path.join(path, f"model_{i}"))
    693 
    694     @classmethod

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/site-packages/Cell_BLAST/model.py in save(self, path, config, weights)
    283         elif not os.path.exists(path):
    284             os.makedirs(path)
--> 285         self._save_config(os.path.join(path, config))
    286         self._save_weights(os.path.join(path, weights))
    287 

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/site-packages/Cell_BLAST/model.py in _save_config(self, file)
    228     def _save_config(self, file: str) -> None:
    229         with open(file, "w") as f:
--> 230             json.dump(self._get_config(), f, indent=4)
    231 
    232     @classmethod

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/__init__.py in dump(obj, fp, skipkeys, ensure_ascii, check_circular, allow_nan, cls, indent, separators, default, sort_keys, **kw)
    177     # could accelerate with writelines in some versions of Python, at
    178     # a debuggability cost
--> 179     for chunk in iterable:
    180         fp.write(chunk)
    181 

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/encoder.py in _iterencode(o, _current_indent_level)
    428             yield from _iterencode_list(o, _current_indent_level)
    429         elif isinstance(o, dict):
--> 430             yield from _iterencode_dict(o, _current_indent_level)
    431         else:
    432             if markers is not None:

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/encoder.py in _iterencode_dict(dct, _current_indent_level)
    402                 else:
    403                     chunks = _iterencode(value, _current_indent_level)
--> 404                 yield from chunks
    405         if newline_indent is not None:
    406             _current_indent_level -= 1

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/encoder.py in _iterencode_list(lst, _current_indent_level)
    323                 else:
    324                     chunks = _iterencode(value, _current_indent_level)
--> 325                 yield from chunks
    326         if newline_indent is not None:
    327             _current_indent_level -= 1

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/encoder.py in _iterencode(o, _current_indent_level)
    435                     raise ValueError("Circular reference detected")
    436                 markers[markerid] = o
--> 437             o = _default(o)
    438             yield from _iterencode(o, _current_indent_level)
    439             if markers is not None:

~/miniconda3/envs/cellblast/lib/python3.6/json/encoder.py in default(self, o)
    178         """
    179         raise TypeError("Object of type '%s' is not JSON serializable" %
--> 180                         o.__class__.__name__)
    181 
    182     def encode(self, o):

TypeError: Object of type 'bytes' is not JSON serializable

If I BLAST query cells to the blast object, it works properly. So this seems to be a bug related to the blast.save() itself.

Best,
Ray