More ElementTree Annoyances

• Cannot serialize int. I can see the value in not automatically serializing every possible object with a __str__ method. But, not converting an int? C'mon!
• Cannot serilaize None. Wouldn't None be the perfect value to indicate "don't serialize this attribute"?

I'm generally a fail-fast-and-loudly kind of guy, but I also don't like having to write more code when it's obvious what I mean. These seem like two cases where I think the tradeoff is in favor of writing less code...

Examples:

>>> import xml.etree.ElementTree as et
>>> et.tostring(et.Element('Foo', attrib={ 'a': 1}))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 1009, in tostring
    ElementTree(element).write(file, encoding)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 663, in write
    self._write(file, self._root, encoding, {})
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 698, in _write
    _escape_attrib(v, encoding)))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 830, in _escape_attrib
    _raise_serialization_error(text)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 777, in _raise_serialization_error
    "cannot serialize %r (type %s)" % (text, type(text).__name__)
TypeError: cannot serialize 1 (type int)
>>> et.tostring(et.Element('Foo', attrib={ 'a': None}))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 1009, in tostring
    ElementTree(element).write(file, encoding)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 663, in write
    self._write(file, self._root, encoding, {})
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 698, in _write
    _escape_attrib(v, encoding)))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 830, in _escape_attrib
    _raise_serialization_error(text)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 777, in _raise_serialization_error
    "cannot serialize %r (type %s)" % (text, type(text).__name__)
TypeError: cannot serialize None (type NoneType)