:mod:`shelve` --- Python object persistence
===========================================
.. module:: shelve
:synopsis: Python object persistence.
**Source code:** :source:`Lib/shelve.py`
.. index:: module: pickle
--------------
A "shelf" is a persistent, dictionary-like object. The difference with "dbm"
databases is that the values (not the keys!) in a shelf can be essentially
arbitrary Python objects --- anything that the :mod:`pickle` module can handle.
This includes most class instances, recursive data types, and objects containing
lots of shared sub-objects. The keys are ordinary strings.
.. function:: open(filename, flag='c', protocol=None, writeback=False)
Open a persistent dictionary. The filename specified is the base filename for
the underlying database. As a side-effect, an extension may be added to the
filename and more than one file may be created. By default, the underlying
database file is opened for reading and writing. The optional *flag* parameter
has the same interpretation as the *flag* parameter of :func:`dbm.open`.
By default, pickles created with :data:`pickle.DEFAULT_PROTOCOL` are used
to serialize values. The version of the pickle protocol can be specified
with the *protocol* parameter.
Because of Python semantics, a shelf cannot know when a mutable
persistent-dictionary entry is modified. By default modified objects are
written *only* when assigned to the shelf (see :ref:`shelve-example`). If the
optional *writeback* parameter is set to ``True``, all entries accessed are also
cached in memory, and written back on :meth:`~Shelf.sync` and
:meth:`~Shelf.close`; this can make it handier to mutate mutable entries in
the persistent dictionary, but, if many entries are accessed, it can consume
vast amounts of memory for the cache, and it can make the close operation
very slow since all accessed entries are written back (there is no way to
determine which accessed entries are mutable, nor which ones were actually
mutated).
.. versionchanged:: 3.10
:data:`pickle.DEFAULT_PROTOCOL` is now used as the default pickle
protocol.
.. note::
Do not rely on the shelf being closed automatically; always call
:meth:`~Shelf.close` explicitly when you don't need it any more, or
use :func:`shelve.open` as a context manager::
with shelve.open('spam') as db:
db['eggs'] = 'eggs'
.. warning::
Because the :mod:`shelve` module is backed by :mod:`pickle`, it is insecure
to load a shelf from an untrusted source. Like with pickle, loading a shelf
can execute arbitrary code.
Shelf objects support all methods supported by dictionaries. This eases the
transition from dictionary based scripts to those requiring persistent storage.
Two additional methods are supported:
.. method:: Shelf.sync()
Write back all entries in the cache if the shelf was opened with *writeback*
set to :const:`True`. Also empty the cache and synchronize the persistent
dictionary on disk, if feasible. This is called automatically when the shelf
is closed with :meth:`close`.
.. method:: Shelf.close()
Synchronize and close the persistent *dict* object. Operations on a closed
shelf will fail with a :exc:`ValueError`.
.. seealso::
`Persistent dictionary recipe `_
with widely supported storage formats and having the speed of native
dictionaries.
Restrictions
------------
.. index::
module: dbm.ndbm
module: dbm.gnu
* The choice of which database package will be used (such as :mod:`dbm.ndbm` or
:mod:`dbm.gnu`) depends on which interface is available. Therefore it is not
safe to open the database directly using :mod:`dbm`. The database is also
(unfortunately) subject to the limitations of :mod:`dbm`, if it is used ---
this means that (the pickled representation of) the objects stored in the
database should be fairly small, and in rare cases key collisions may cause
the database to refuse updates.
* The :mod:`shelve` module does not support *concurrent* read/write access to
shelved objects. (Multiple simultaneous read accesses are safe.) When a
program has a shelf open for writing, no other program should have it open for
reading or writing. Unix file locking can be used to solve this, but this
differs across Unix versions and requires knowledge about the database
implementation used.
.. class:: Shelf(dict, protocol=None, writeback=False, keyencoding='utf-8')
A subclass of :class:`collections.abc.MutableMapping` which stores pickled
values in the *dict* object.
By default, pickles created with :data:`pickle.DEFAULT_PROTOCOL` are used
to serialize values. The version of the pickle protocol can be specified
with the *protocol* parameter. See the :mod:`pickle` documentation for a
discussion of the pickle protocols.
If the *writeback* parameter is ``True``, the object will hold a cache of all
entries accessed and write them back to the *dict* at sync and close times.
This allows natural operations on mutable entries, but can consume much more
memory and make sync and close take a long time.
The *keyencoding* parameter is the encoding used to encode keys before they
are used with the underlying dict.
A :class:`Shelf` object can also be used as a context manager, in which
case it will be automatically closed when the :keyword:`with` block ends.
.. versionchanged:: 3.2
Added the *keyencoding* parameter; previously, keys were always encoded in
UTF-8.
.. versionchanged:: 3.4
Added context manager support.
.. versionchanged:: 3.10
:data:`pickle.DEFAULT_PROTOCOL` is now used as the default pickle
protocol.
.. class:: BsdDbShelf(dict, protocol=None, writeback=False, keyencoding='utf-8')
A subclass of :class:`Shelf` which exposes :meth:`first`, :meth:`!next`,
:meth:`previous`, :meth:`last` and :meth:`set_location` which are available
in the third-party :mod:`bsddb` module from `pybsddb
`_ but not in other database
modules. The *dict* object passed to the constructor must support those
methods. This is generally accomplished by calling one of
:func:`bsddb.hashopen`, :func:`bsddb.btopen` or :func:`bsddb.rnopen`. The
optional *protocol*, *writeback*, and *keyencoding* parameters have the same
interpretation as for the :class:`Shelf` class.
.. class:: DbfilenameShelf(filename, flag='c', protocol=None, writeback=False)
A subclass of :class:`Shelf` which accepts a *filename* instead of a dict-like
object. The underlying file will be opened using :func:`dbm.open`. By
default, the file will be created and opened for both read and write. The
optional *flag* parameter has the same interpretation as for the :func:`.open`
function. The optional *protocol* and *writeback* parameters have the same
interpretation as for the :class:`Shelf` class.
.. _shelve-example:
Example
-------
To summarize the interface (``key`` is a string, ``data`` is an arbitrary
object)::
import shelve
d = shelve.open(filename) # open -- file may get suffix added by low-level
# library
d[key] = data # store data at key (overwrites old data if
# using an existing key)
data = d[key] # retrieve a COPY of data at key (raise KeyError
# if no such key)
del d[key] # delete data stored at key (raises KeyError
# if no such key)
flag = key in d # true if the key exists
klist = list(d.keys()) # a list of all existing keys (slow!)
# as d was opened WITHOUT writeback=True, beware:
d['xx'] = [0, 1, 2] # this works as expected, but...
d['xx'].append(3) # *this doesn't!* -- d['xx'] is STILL [0, 1, 2]!
# having opened d without writeback=True, you need to code carefully:
temp = d['xx'] # extracts the copy
temp.append(5) # mutates the copy
d['xx'] = temp # stores the copy right back, to persist it
# or, d=shelve.open(filename,writeback=True) would let you just code
# d['xx'].append(5) and have it work as expected, BUT it would also
# consume more memory and make the d.close() operation slower.
d.close() # close it
.. seealso::
Module :mod:`dbm`
Generic interface to ``dbm``-style databases.
Module :mod:`pickle`
Object serialization used by :mod:`shelve`.